Clendenning completed a four-year apprenticeship with an IBEW signatory contractor in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1960, and then spent the next several years continent-hopping with his family while working as a journeyman wireman and foreman to support it.

“In the first few years we were married, with three young children in tow, we moved to Algeria for a two-year contract,” said Donna Clendenning, Vair’s wife of 57 years. “Then we lived in England for a year and then moved to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for another year.”

So it went for the Clendenning clan until 1975, when the family settled in Alberta and Vair was initiated into Edmonton Local 424. He quickly got active with his local, serving on its examining and executive boards while focusing on bringing members into the IBEW and ensuring that they received the training they needed.

Clendenning also served as Local 424’s vice president before he was appointed as an assistant business manager in 1979 and business manager two years later.

It was a rough time for Alberta’s economy: Unionized construction jobs in the province vanished by the hundreds throughout the 1980s as the oil industry there collapsed and major construction projects stopped.

“He was just a stand-up guy. If he gave you his word, it meant something.”

^{– Retired First District International Representative Charles McKenzie}

Retired First District International Representative Charles McKenzie, who was then the business manager of Kitchener, Ontario, Local 804, got to know Clendenning around this time.

“Vair was very dedicated and always there to help people,” McKenzie said. “He believed that everybody deserved a second chance and that you shouldn’t throw them out the first time they did something wrong.”

Local 424’s members appreciated Clendenning’s approach and voted to keep him as their business manager in the next three elections.

“He was strong-minded and had his own viewpoints,” McKenzie added. “But if I sat down with him and could get into the opposite sides of an issue, sometimes he could convince me to go his way, and sometimes I could convince him to go my way.”

While serving as business manager, Clendenning also represented the IBEW on the boards of the Alberta Federation of Labor, the Northern Alberta Building Trades Council and the Union Centre Credit Union. He also sat on the board of appeals commission for Alberta’s Workers’ Compensation Board, and he served the Building Trades of Alberta on its board and as its spokesman.

Because of Clendenning’s BTA work, the New Democratic Party in Alberta encouraged him to run in the 1986 election to unseat the province’s minister of labor. With support from building trades members, the NDP won almost 30% of the vote and 16 seats in Alberta’s Legislative Assembly. Clendenning, though, fell 71 votes short of winning his election.

In 1992, Clendenning began serving the BTA as coordinator for organizing and special projects, delivering dozens of courses on union recruitment and salting while also developing training for construction supervisors and for business representatives in the BTA’s member unions.

International President J.J. Barry appointed Clendenning as an international representative for the First District in 1997 to service locals in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. Clendenning’s duties included working with the union’s Education Department, where he helped develop courses on subjects ranging from conducting hearings to handling disagreements, training programs for international representatives, and a popular “boot camp” for new business managers.

That same year, Clendenning earned a certificate in adult and continuing education from the University of Alberta. In 2005, he earned a bachelor’s degree in labor education from the National Labor College outside Washington, D.C., and he later became a certified human resources professional.

In 2007, Clendenning retired and moved with Donna to British Columbia, spending time with their children Tim, Bobbi-Sue and Cory, as well as their nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“He was just a stand-up guy,” said McKenzie, who retired two years later and moved close enough to have lunch visits with Clendenning. “If he gave you his word, it meant something.”

The Clendennings also resumed their world travels, taking full advantage of the benefits Vair earned from his many years of IBEW membership.

“We had the travel bug,” Donna said. “We got into cruising all over the world. We drove across the U.S. and Canada a couple of times, and we hiked, rafted and went scuba diving in the South Pacific, one of our favorite places.”

Vair also was also a prolific writer, documenting the couple’s travel stories for numerous publications and penning letters to editors of their local newspapers. He also wrote a book about how to get by on a cruise ship vacation for $100 a day.

“He was a top labor leader, always there for workers,” Donna said, “and he was very kind and thoughtful.”

The officers and staff of the IBEW send our sincerest condolences to Clendenning’s family.