“I wanted to be an electrician at 9 years old. Growing up in Everett, Mass., I was surrounded by the families of union electricians. They were like family to me, and I gained a deep understanding of the union’s role and the electrical industry through them. My uncles were in the IBEW, working as in-house electricians for Raytheon, and I saw what they did, how they wired things, and it just grabbed me. This, combined with the strong work ethic instilled in me by my father, a Teamsters sheet metal worker, drove me to become a union electrician.