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After graduating from the University of Iowa with a BA degree, I went to work in Midwestern factories and pursued an interest in labor politics and organizing. In 1978 Ford Motor Co. hired me as an assembler at the Twin City Ford Assembly Plant in St. Paul, MN where I worked for 28 years as an assembler, industrial electrician, and full-time union representative. In 1998 I became President of UAW 879 at the Ford plant and was elected three more times to that office serving from 1998-2006. When Ford announced their decision to close the Twin Cities Plant in 2006, I took a job on the International UAW staff as a regional servicing representative working in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. I was elected to and served on the Minnesota State AFL-CIO Executive Board for twelve years as a multi-union representative and was also elected as secretary-treasurer of UAW Ford Sub-Council #2, a national bargaining council of U.S. Ford assembly plants between 2002-2006. I retired in 2016 and began researching an attack on Ford workers at a plant near Mexico City.