Frank Jacobs, a 30-year electrician and financial secretary of IBEW Electrical Workers Local 1, has been selected by the union’s executive board to assume leadership of Local 1 as its business manager. He will fill the unexpired term of Greg Booth who died Aug. 26.
Jacobs’ election on Aug. 31 was the first time the executive board selected an elected officer to fill out an unexpired business manager’s term. In the two times of an unexpected death and mid-term retirement of the business manager in the union’s history, his replacement was selected from the ranks of business representatives.
With Jacobs assuming leadership, a number of other changes were made as well. They include new officers: Financial Secretary Jim Douglas (formerly vice president), Vice President Don Bresnan Jr. (formerly Examining Board member) and new Examining Board member Jeff Witt, a journeyman wireman.
“I look forward to carrying on the proud tradition of representing our members. I know I have big shoes to fill following Greg, who was a unique, incredibly effective leader,” Jacob said. “We are already missing him a great deal.
‘WORKING FOR MEMBERS’
Jacobs’ family has five generations in Local 1, a lineage that includes a Local 1 charter member, a father, Jack Jacobs (now retired), who served as Local 1’s president and a grandfather, Frank W. Jacobs, who was both Local 1’s president and business manager and was vice president of the IBEW’s 11th District.
ACTIVE CAREER
Joining Local 1 as an apprentice in 1982 and becoming a journeyman in 1986, his leadership talents quickly became obvious: his was almost immediately appointed steward, the first of many such job-site appointments. In 1983 he was appointed a COMET instructor, a position he held with distinction until 1998 when he was elected by the executive board to fill the remaining term as Recording Secretary.
In the interim, in 1994 he was appointed to the Apprenticeship Training Committee where he proudly served four business managers and four presidents.
In 1999, 2002 and 2005 he was elected Recording Secretary; in 2008 was appointed a Local 1 organizer until 2010 when he became the union’s Director of Membership Development. During which he created the Missouri Electrical Compliance Counsel, a watchdog organization established to make sure electrical contractors adhere to a 12-point checklist on all state and federally funded projects that included prevailing wage and apprenticeship standards.
In 2011, as part of a Unity Slate that swept into office, he was elected financial secretary along with Greg Booth’s election as business manager.
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