Orville Tate and Jonathan Gardner took very different paths to the IBEW.

Tate grew up in tiny Cheyenne, Okla., and moved to the state capital of Oklahoma City to work the night shift at a Western Electric plant with IBEW jurisdiction.

Gardner was a scholarship track athlete at the University of Arizona, where he earned an engineering degree, and nearly attended law school before deciding on a career in the trades.

But the two became fast friends when they met in 1966, when Tate was the business manager at Oklahoma City Local 2021 and Gardner was a Seventh District international representative who serviced the local.

“He and I hit it off because we were two young people looking to change things,” Gardner said.

It was the early stages of two illustrious IBEW careers and the beginning of a 60-year friendship.

Tate and Gardner both eventually served long tenures as the Seventh District international vice president. This year, they receive their 65-year membership pins, both having joined the IBEW in 1961.

It won’t be a surprise to longtime friends and former colleagues, but they’ve enjoyed active retirements.

Tate still lives in Oklahoma City, and while he recently gave up motorcycle riding, he still restores classic cars.

“I love to do it,” he said. “It’s six hours where you’re free, you’re off by yourself, and physically I can still handle it.

“I’m not so sure about the mental part,” he said with a laugh. “I lay down a wrench and I find myself looking for it for five minutes.”

“He and I hit it off because we were two young people looking to change things.”

_{– Orville Tate}

Gardner, 86, who threw the discus during his college track career, still gets to the gym regularly near his home in Fort Worth, Texas, and occasionally plays a round of golf. The 6-foot-5 Tate marvels to this day at how the 6-foot-8 Gardner was one of the few people who could beat him in an arm-wrestling match.

That imposing physique, however, came with a top-notch mind. Tate noted Gardner led and won several organizing campaigns, adding several hundred new members to the IBEW. One organizing drive led to the chartering of Beaumont, Texas, Local 2286.

“Jon really was the brains behind a lot of what we accomplished,” Tate said. “I could see the big picture and I wasn’t afraid to challenge people, but Jon was the one who mastered the little things.”

That’s a description Gardner agrees with, noting Tate’s persistence and ability to look at the entire picture, while Gardner focused on details and solutions to potential problems.

“Orville was always pushing,” he said. “I pushed in a different way. I tried to do it by looking at details of what it would take to be successful.”

Local 2021’s membership grew by more than 2,000 during Tate’s three-year tenure as business manager, which earned him an appointment as a Seventh District international representative in 1967. He later was assigned by the international president to work with organizing staff on campaigns throughout the United States, adding thousands of new members.

He was appointed international vice president in 1981, where he was a leader in all forms of organizing. He served on a committee from 1985 to 1995 that revamped the Brotherhood’s construction organizing and was reelected IVP five times before retiring in 2002.

“He knew the IBEW had to change the way it was doing things, particularly in construction organizing,” Gardner said. “He had a great mind for that.”

Gardner got his introduction to labor when he took a summer job during college at a copper mine about 40 miles north of Tucson. Breaking rocks of copper ore 2,000 feet below ground was exhausting and sometimes dangerous work.

“I pushed in a different way. I tried to do it by looking at details of what it would take to be successful.”

_{– Jonathan Gardner}

He noticed as he rode the man train to the underground work area each morning that the electricians on site were in the electric shop drinking coffee as they started their workday.

“I thought, ‘That’s a lot better than swinging a 16-pound double jack,’” Gardner said.

The company accepted his transfer request to the electrical department, and Gardner joined Tucson Local 570, where he helped a member running for business manager wage a successful campaign, became unit chairman, and took part in contract negotiations. He moved to Fort Worth, the location of the Seventh District office, in 1965 before becoming an international representative one year later.

“I decided at that time that working in labor was more suited to my personality than engineering,” he said. “It was more challenging and gave me the opportunity to change people’s lives for the better. So, I took the job.”

Gardner later transferred his membership to Local 2286. In addition to being a strong organizer, he became an expert in contract negotiations and arbitration, serving as an instructor at the George Meany Center for a labor arbitration course. He said he took part in about 200 arbitration cases during his career.

He took over for Tate as Seventh District international vice president in 2002 and was reelected twice before retiring in 2013. Looking back, the things that stick with him the most are the sacrifices workers made — many of them in dire circumstances — to join the IBEW and turn around their lives.

In one campaign in southeast Texas, a woman walked the picket line while nine months pregnant, took a few days off to have her baby, and returned to the picket line — all without a husband or partner to support her. That dispute was settled after a six-month strike.

“Personal sacrifices and demonstrations of support like that were literally awe inspiring and really affected me,” Gardner said. “The personal sacrifices members would make to achieve a goal the local union and I were promoting caused me to frequently ask myself if I was doing the right thing. I even wondered at times if I could personally make similar sacrifices to achieve a goal.”

Current Seventh District International President Chris Wagner met Tate in the early 1990s, when Tate — then the district vice president — attended a meeting at Austin, Texas, Local 520, of which Wagner was a member.

Several months later, he had become a member Local 520’s executive board and Tate attended another meeting there.

“He kind of looked at me, squinted his eyes, and looked at me in that booming voice of his and said, “You were the one sitting in that corner asking me all those questions, weren’t you?” Wagner said with a laugh. “He’s got a memory like a steel trap.”

That memory proved invaluable over the years.

“I was struck by his knowledge and his guts and being able to say what was on his mind,” Wagner said. “He could look people right in the eye and tell them what he thought was wrong.”

Gardner’s knowledge of the arbitration process still is making an impact, especially in the Seventh District. Even in retirement, he’s been brought in to conduct arbitration training for business managers and international representatives.

“I spent a lot of time with Jon when I was an assistant business manager [at Local 520],” he said. “His knowledge and passion for organized labor and helping working people is unsurpassed.”

To this day, Gardner hears from brothers and sisters whose lives were changed by IBEW membership due to organizing drives he was part of.

“People tell me, ‘Before you came to town, I could not go anywhere on vacation,” he said. “Now, I can go on vacation. I didn’t have a pension or any kind of health coverage. Now, I have that.’

“It’s an amazing thing,” he said. “I’m always especially gratified when people remember that. We empower people. That’s what labor unions do, and that’s why people will stand with you when it gets tough.”

Tate maintains a passion for organizing to this day.

“I got to see some extremely poor people working for multibillion-dollar companies go from adobe houses with dirt floors to a home with a good floor and earn a good wage,” Tate said. “That is what organizing is all about. That is the backbone of the IBEW.”

Two men who contributed mightily to that backbone have extra reason to celebrate this year.

“You pull out a victory, and people get their self-respect back,” Gardner said. “That’s what I loved about this job. You empower people. You have the opportunity to address unfairness, discrimination and inequity and be part of making meaningful improvements in people’s lives.”