The tidal wave of pro-worker victories in U.S. elections last November and earlier included the IBEW’s own first-time candidates and seasoned officeholders winning races for town councils, school boards, utility boards and more, including two Assembly seats in New Jersey. “I’m so proud of our members’ public service, which is critical to our fight for IBEW jobs and values,” International President Kenneth W. Cooper said, pointing out that thousands more offices are up for grabs in the U.S. and Canada in 2026. “We’d love to see some of your names on those ballots. But you can still make a huge difference by supporting and voting for pro-union candidates.” Below, meet three of the IBEW’s 2025 winners.

Stephen Nowicki

Buffalo, N.Y., Local 41
Town Council, Cheektowaga, N.Y.

With a repaving project stalled on his own road and public works decaying all over town, Stephen Nowicki decided to stop complaining to elected leaders and run for office himself.

On Nov. 4, the journeyman wireman was part of a worker-friendly sweep in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, ousting incumbent Town Council members who were dragging their feet on urgent, job-creating projects.

“They were going in circles, spinning their wheels,” Nowicki said. “I started voicing my opinion, telling them that there are things we have to get done.”

Then he realized that his financial security as an IBEW member gave him the opportunity to do more than attend council meetings.

“I finally got to a good spot in my life,” said Nowicki, 29, who joined Local 41 a year after high school. “I had a house. I had a dog. I got married. We don’t have debt. Everything kind of fell into place, and that freed me to get involved in local politics. And I thought I’d do a good job at it.”

Last spring, he filed to run for one of four council seats on November’s ballot in Cheektowaga, population 90,000. In August, he began knocking on doors, putting his building trades expertise front and center.

“I had so much fun on the campaign trail,” he said. “The council’s failure to act on infrastructure made it so easy. All of it goes back to the 1950s and ’60s. Everything needs improvement.

“The biggest thing I sold people on was: ‘Look at how expensive it is to fix things in your home. Have you ever seen a project get cheaper the longer you wait? Apply that to our roads and our sewers.’”

Nowicki believes he can be fiscally prudent as a councilman while also advocating for union labor — not only the long-term benefits of top-quality construction but savings at the front end from well-managed union jobsites.

He credits his win in large part to Local 41’s support, from volunteers to PAC donations. Business Manager Greg Inglut said it “was all Stephen,” citing his energetic campaign and how thoroughly he prepared to run.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” Inglut said. “We spend a lot of time with politicians attempting to educate them about what’s important to us and what our values are. Stephen knows our values and lives them.”

Nowicki urges IBEW members interested in public office to “go for it” and not worry too much about the details.

“The rest of the stuff, like financing, you can find along the way,” he said. “Your friends, your family, your union, they want to see you succeed. They’ll be there to support you, and new people will reach out. If you have it in your heart where you believe you can make change for the better, that’s really all you need.” 

Naomi Hewitt

Anchorage, Alaska, Local 1547
Fairbanks School Board

Naomi Hewitt’s values took root in a union household in southern Illinois and were nourished by a superb public education.

Those influences converged last year as she ran for and won a seat on the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board, which covers more than 7,000 square miles in central Alaska.

The daughter of a mine worker and granddaughter of a West Frankfurt, Ill., Local 702 power plant worker, Hewitt didn’t immediately follow them into the trades. Instead, she earned a forestry degree and moved to Alaska.

Five years later, a friend in statewide Local 1547 nudged her into an apprenticeship. “He didn’t just get me into the IBEW. He pushed me to come to meetings and be involved,” said Hewitt, now a business representative.

In spring 2025, with a 3-year-old son and mounting concerns about education in Alaska, Hewitt attended her state’s AFL-CIO labor candidate school. Flush with inspiration, a nuts-and-bolts toolkit and her local’s enthusiastic support, she was ready to run.

“Being active in the IBEW, I’d helped with a lot of campaigns, phone banking and knocking doors. But I’d never done it this way, never so personally,” Hewitt said.

She talked to voters about defined-benefit pensions to attract and keep the kind of teachers she’d had, strengthening pre-apprenticeship and technical programs in Alaska’s trade-heavy interior, and fallout from short-sighted board decisions.

“About a year ago, they voted to outsource the nighttime custodial staff,” Hewitt said. “Instead of 75 good, union jobs, there are now fewer people doing more work for fewer benefits.”

She is a staunch advocate for retirement security, an issue the Legislature is revisiting 20 years after replacing guaranteed public pensions with 401(k) plans.

“Alaska’s the only state in the union that doesn’t have pensions for our public servants,” she said. “Being IBEW, you absolutely know the value of that. I saw it with my own grandpa.”

Hewitt’s school board service began shortly after her victory in October, when Alaska holds local elections. She said labor had lots to celebrate, with past or present union members also winning Fairbanks City Council and Borough Assembly seats.

Their success brings a powerful worker-friendly voice to the region’s public policies and practices. “Either you sit in the back seat and watch things happen or you get in the driver’s seat and steer the bus,” Hewitt said. 

Ritch Kurtenbach

Waterloo, Iowa, Local 288
Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors

From salting nonunion jobsites to bargaining contracts and lobbying politicians, Ritch Kurtenbach knows a thing or two about persuading people.

Today, those skills are helping him fight for workers and good, union jobs as a member of the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors in northeastern Iowa.

A past business manager and organizer at Waterloo Local 288, Kurtenbach proudly touted his union bona fides in a special-election race last January.

His campaign website stated, high up: “Ritch emphases his practical and hands-on perspective, shaped by his 45 years as an IBEW member and 28 years as a labor leader.”

He applauds all pro-union candidates but distinguishes them from union members themselves who run for office.

“We have a lot of good Democrats who support labor and working families,” Kurtenbach said. “But they don’t know the intricate details when it comes to things like misclassification of workers and other union and worker-rights issues.”

The son of an IBEW wireman, Kurtenbach began his apprenticeship during the recession and farm crisis of the early 1980s.

“It was the worst time I could have started a construction career,” he said. Two years into his training, he was unemployed for nine months. He hit the road, working as an electrician and welder on everything from Texas high rises to a Florida movie studio to nuclear plants in multiple states.

Decades later, he sees potential for a small nuclear plant in his region’s clean energy future, part of his broad push for investing in quality union-built projects.

“In 28 years as a union rep, I tried to educate the public sector — school boards, city councils — that union jobs make sense, that union quality is good public policy and that’s in the better interests of taxpayers,” he said.

Toward that end, he wants the county to require contractors to attest to manpower, labor law violations and other specifics via a post-bid questionnaire. Businesses deemed unreliable could be rejected no matter how low their bid.

Kurtenbach likens his mission on the board to his covert days on nonunion worksites.

“I believe in the IBEW so much that sometimes you’ve got to go to those places where people are against you in order to educate them,” he said. “In organizing, you have do something on the inside to make things flourish. The same is true in politics.”