Quanta CEO Treasures His Family’s IBEW History
Earl “Duke” Austin, Quanta Services CEO
Quanta Services CEO Earl “Duke” Austin told delegates on Sept. 23 how humbling it was for him to stand in front of the 41st IBEW International Convention and see the many members who make things happen.
“It warms my heart, warms my soul,” said Austin, who noted that his family experience with Houston Local 66 goes back generations. “I watched my granddad get his 50-year pin when I was 9.”
He recalled another childhood scene: “My dad was just coming off a pole. He had creosote all over him, he’d hug me, put creosote on my face, and my mom would freak out.”
The IBEW and Quanta are both growing, said Austin, who has served as Quanta’s CEO since 2016.
Austin praised International President Kenneth W. Cooper and the IBEW’s other elected leaders for their commitment to making things better for members and for the industry.
“I work for you, the men and women in the field. I get to talk about the great things these trades do every day,” the CEO said. “I love my job, and Kenny loves his job. He works his ass off. That’s why we get along.”
Even when the IBEW and Quanta are on opposite sides of an issue, “we’re still trying to win,” Austin said. “It’s about making things better for you and making things better for our people.”
He believes the world is experiencing another Industrial Revolution.
“You think about where the railroads were built and the towns that were done,” Austin said. “My granddad built a line from Galveston, Texas, into Houston. Today, you will build facilities in West Texas where there is nothing there. People will have to build towns and cities around what we’re doing in electrification.”
Building a future like that requires journeyman electrical workers, he said.
“The only way you get a journeyman is to have a journeyman,” Austin said. “I’m seeing money get put in the markets, hundreds of millions of dollars, and all of a sudden craftsmen are going to appear? That’s not how it works.
“You are not a commodity,” he said. “You drive our business, and you drive the future of everyone’s business.”
Austin used Quanta’s $5 billion, 3.5-gigawatt Sun Zia wind generation and transmission project as one example.
“They were messing with it for 15 years. They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “There was a communication gap. People were talking past each other. I just said, ‘Hey, I know Cooper. Let me just call him,’” Austin said.
And so in 2023, the IBEW signed a project labor agreement with Quanta to build the $1.3 billion, 580-mile transmission line in New Mexico and Arizona in support of Sun Zia.
At its peak, Sun Zia — one of the largest-ever renewable energy projects in North America — is expected to create more than 2,000 construction jobs across the Southwest.
“We were able to work together and have that thing solved because we communicated,” Austin said.
Cooper noted that Austin’s remarks were unscripted. “He spoke from his heart. That’s the kind of person he really is,” the international president said. “I’m very proud to say that every time Duke gave me his word, he’s kept that word.”
NECA CEO Long Lauds 125 Years of IBEW Partnership
David Long, National Electrical Contractors Association CEO
Addressing the 41st IBEW International Convention on Sept. 22, National Electrical Contractors Association CEO David Long compared his organization’s 125-year relationship with the IBEW to two workers using a crosscut saw.
“It only works when both sides are working together,” he said, “when both sides are in rhythm, one pushing and one pulling.”
NECA was founded in 1901 to help electrical contractors across the United States grow their businesses safely and professionally. Today, most of the estimated 70,000 contracting firms in the U.S. are IBEW-NECA signatories.
“We can look back at periods of time in history when we worked together, the sawing was easier, the work was easier,” Long said. “It is essential that we saw in rhythm.”
Long has remained a card-carrying member of Jacksonville, Fla., Local 177 since 1975, when he began his construction wireman career with Miller Electric. He became Miller’s president in 2012 and has served as NECA’s CEO since 2019.
“I can’t tell you how much I value the partnership we have with NECA,” said International President Kenneth W. Cooper, who introduced Long. “I owe so much to David’s vision and leadership.”
Long said that electrical workers nowadays are the “cool kids.”
“The work we’re doing right now is so important in this country that every time you turn on the TV, they’re talking about electrical workers,” he said.
Long also noted how the IBEW-NECA partnership has led to several significant accomplishments, not least of which was the 2024 creation of the first new retirement benefit in nearly eight decades, the National Electrical Individual Benefit.
The CEO also lauded the collaboration of the two organizations on expanding IBEW apprenticeships and rolling out new hiring initiatives amid historic demand for skilled electrical workers.
“Our contractors and myself have been a part of seeing the largest increase in ‘A’ membership in five decades,” he said. “We have record applicants; we have record numbers.”
The IBEW-NECA partnership, Long said, also has led to the settlement in recent years of hundreds of local agreements and the resolution of more than 100 Council on Industrial Relations cases.
“We believe that every nonunion worker ought to be working for a NECA contractor belonging to the IBEW,” he said. “No, we don’t always agree, but we have some things in common, and the very things that keep us in common are the ties that bind.
“If we’re going to power a brighter future, we have to sharpen ourselves, and we have to be in rhythm like never before,” Long said. “Every moment going forward will take us pulling in a rhythm that has never been seen before, so we can change the industry, so we can reach 1 million members.”
