For people living in and around Salt Lake City, even Utahns in smaller urban areas, it’d be hard to miss the energy force that is Local 354.

Its ranks have swelled in recent years, including a 20% jump in just 12 months that led the local to sweep the Eighth District’s annual organizing awards this spring.

Through creativity and tenacity, the now 3,200-strong union has grown by nearly 900 members — apprentices and journeymen alike — since Business Manager Steve Woodman took the helm in 2019.

The same vigor has yielded other big wins, notably a landmark inside contract with paid holidays, an extremely rare feat in the building trades.

“It’s contagious, the effects of growth. You get on a roll,” Woodman said. “We’ve capitalized on that in lots of ways: better services to our membership, a bigger staff that keeps achieving more, remodeling our hall, more social events. Our members love those.”

The local’s pursuits are bolstered by a keen sense of marketing — radio interviews, digital ads, an updated website and app, abundant social media posts, YouTube videos, and other methods of shining a spotlight on what Local 354 has to offer.

“We’re showing Utah who we are,” Woodman said. “Growing isn’t just about numbers. We’re stronger and more active and more visible, and we keep building on that.”

From top to bottom, the local buzzes with high spirits and solidarity. Its ambassadors are everywhere, as Jessi Webster described after the union’s annual “Boondocks Day” in May, hours of family fun at an indoor amusement park.

The general foreman at a massive data center building site, Webster said about half of her 120-member crew are journey-level recruits. For many of them, the Boondocks outing was the first time they’d mingled with other local wiremen and telecom members.

“Some had been nonunion for years and finally took a chance on the IBEW,” she said. “They said they felt welcomed by everyone there, that they never had anything like that from previous employers.”

That’s the human side of Local 354’s progress. There’s also the pragmatic side, where phrases like “web optimization” have entered the staff’s lexicon.

Organizer Todd Baugh said the local website is on its way to being a “one-stop shop” for electricians, future electricians, contractors and anyone looking for electrical help. A marketing company is helping maximize the site’s visitors.

“We took the approach of, ‘If you search online for an electrician or a job or apprenticeship, what do you find?’” Baugh said. “We hopped on there and realized that our presence was almost nowhere to be seen.”

Now when people enter key words in search engines, Local 354 pops up high in the results. “I think digital marketing has been one of biggest and most innovative factors in our growth,” he said.

There’s also been a ripple effect from the exuberant local-wide fight that led, against all odds in the trades, to a new contract with seven paid holidays.

For more than a year, members donned red “Paid Holidays for All” shirts at worksites every Wednesday, and at rallies and other events. Building trades allies soon were wearing the same IBEW-branded tees. The pressure was relentless. Last November, signatory contractors agreed to the milestone terms.

“That campaign really pumped people up, and it carried over into our organizing drives,” Woodman said.

Along the way, Local 354’s training program hit a high of 800 apprentices; about 750 are enrolled currently. Training Director Brian Vermouth said staff sends yearly letters to every high school guidance counselor in the state, hosts open houses at its state-of-the art facilities and helps retain members through a mentorship program.

He’s pleased to see how quickly apprentices embrace the brotherhood and turn out with enthusiasm for local activities, such as gathering signatures for a 2026 statewide referendum to restore collective bargaining for public employees.

“Even though it didn’t affect them directly, they weren’t going to sit down and let politicians take away public workers’ rights,” Vermouth said. “They understood that an injury to one is an injury to all.”

The local also has had success bringing on board journey-level electricians, responding with gusto to a directive from International President Kenneth W. Cooper.

Signing up experienced wiremen is one of Cooper’s top priorities in order to meet the industry’s record-high demand and protect the IBEW’s market share against nonunion competitors. Under the program, qualified new members can enter the union as journeymen based on their cumulative hours in the trade.

Work had become so plentiful in Utah that for nearly two years, until recently, Local 354 offered a $2,000 signing bonus — $500 in the first 30 days and another $1,500 after three months. There were also $500 referral bonuses for members.

Baugh said the bonuses were a “little icing on top” of the IBEW’s strongest selling points: enviable wages, health care and pensions.

Another popular program through Pro-Union Consulting offers week-long classes for members who want to open their own businesses. “We’re building contractors from within our own membership,” Woodman said. “We’ve started approximately 25 new shops across the Eighth District.”

The local also held more job fairs during the bonus period, drawing potential recruits through digital ads and videos — produced by an IBEW-​represented company in Colorado — and, most powerfully, by personal contact.

Using lists of licensed journeyman wiremen in Utah, local and district staff paired with member volunteers for door-knocking blitzes leading up to each job fair.

William Royce, now a full-time organizer, was an apprentice when he volunteered to canvas. “It was so fun,” he said. “I didn’t have a single bad experience.”

Still, there were skeptics at the doors. “They’d say: ‘What do you want? What are you selling?’” Royce said. “But once they started listening, you could see they were realizing that they could have a better life by joining the union.”

Member Logan Howard is another evangelist for Local 354. The chair of Pride at Work in Utah and vice chair of his county’s Democratic committee, he said there’s rarely a weekend when he’s not out in the community advocating for his union and the labor movement overall.

“I can spend an entire event talking to people about the IBEW, because I love the IBEW,” Howard said. “Even if it’s not the right fit for them, I tell them about the union difference: ‘Here’s why unions are great.’”

Other Local 354 groups and projects convey the same message, from veterans to a new motorcycle club to a holiday gift program in partnership with a radio station that engages the Salt Lake City area. Not to mention younger members raising funds, collecting food and clothing, planting trees and doing other good works through their RENEW chapter.

In an international union so large and giving, the activities themselves aren’t unique. But they’re part of a winning strategy, a holistic approach to growth that has IBEW leaders cheering.

“I couldn’t be prouder, not only of what Local 354 has accomplished, but how they’ve gone about it. It’s inspiring,” Eighth District International Vice President Jerry Bellah said. “This is a local firing on all cylinders, and everyone — members and their families, the communities they serve, and the IBEW as a whole — is reaping the rewards.”