DECEASED — Donald Shaputis, a retired Eighth District international representative whose active IBEW career spanned nearly a half-century, died April 8 after a long illness. He was 86.
Shaputis was initiated into the IBEW in 1957, spending all but his first year in Local 111 in his hometown of Denver. Hired by a public utility, he worked as a laborer, groundman, truck driver and lineman apprentice before earning his journeyman status in 1965.
From that point on, he immersed himself in his union, serving as a unit chair, executive board member and president over the course of a decade. In 1976, he was hired onto the local staff, rising from a business agent and organizer to senior assistant business manager. He also served on the Denver Area Labor Federation board, among myriad other union and community appointments.
In Local 111’s newsletter, Shaputis described his commitment to the brotherhood as “24-hour, seven-day-a-week dedication. I enjoy representing people. It’s important their rights are upheld.”
Tapped to join the international staff in 1987, he spent 16 years traveling throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Idaho.
“I serviced all the Eighth District states at one time or another,” Shaputis said in his Electrical Worker retirement article in 2003. “The most challenging event for me in all the years was the negotiations with Colorado Ute Electrical Association when the clerical staff went out on strike. It was difficult.”
“It was great to serve under Don’s mentorship. He was a wealth of information and IBEW history.”
– Sean McCarville, Eighth District international representative
Most rewarding, he said, was organizing workers at Montana Power, which established Colstrip Local 1638.
Sean McCarville, an Eighth District international representative, said he learned a lot from Shaputis during his own early tenure as an organizer and construction agent.
“It was great to be part of another generation to serve under Don’s mentorship,” McCarville said. “He was a wealth of information and IBEW history, and he helped me better understand why things were the way they were. He did a good job of trying to keep me from throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
Joyce Shaputis described her husband’s diligence and skills of persuasion in organizing drives or across the bargaining table. “And at home,” she said with a laugh.
“He was a deep thinker when he was doing arbitrations or trying to get people organized. He just had a way about him,” she said, noting that he often practiced his arguments with her.
Shaputis grew up in a union home, the son of a meatpacker. He and Joyce — who managed Local 111’s credit union and joined OPEIU after a merger — raised their children with the same pro-worker values. One of their two daughters was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers, and their son, Michael Shaputis, who died in 2013, was a journeyman wireman in Denver Local 68.
An avid sports fan, Shaputis coached Little League baseball; officiated high school basketball; and enjoyed fly-fishing, golf, hiking, camping, woodworking and reading. He and Joyce also traveled extensively, visiting 48 states and most of Europe.
“Don wasn’t one to sit and watch TV,” Joyce said. “He was always busy, always doing something.”
And always with purpose. From work to family to community, she said, “it was important to him to do the right thing.”
In 2023, the couple moved from their Denver suburb to Florida to enjoy its warm weather and be nearer to relatives. High school sweethearts, they would have celebrated their 67th anniversary in June.
In addition to Joyce, survivors include daughters Linda and Karen, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The IBEW family sends them our deepest sympathy, with gratitude for Brother Shaputis’ decades of service to our union.
