St. Louis Building Trades will honor working family politicians at annual Leadership Awards dinner Aug. 25

By TIM ROWDEN

Editor

The Building and Construction Trades Council of St. Louis will honor state, county and city political leaders who champion working family values at its annual Leadership Awards Dinner Saturday, Aug. 25, at The Cedars at St. Raymond’s, 939 Lebanon Drive in St. Louis.

The evening will begin with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. followed by dinner and the awards ceremony at 7:30 p.m.

2018 HONOREES

This year’s honorees include:

• State Auditor Nicole Galloway, Missouri’s independent taxpayer watchdog. A CPA and Certified Fraud Examiner, her audits have uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, and have changed the way officials around the state do business on behalf of taxpayers.

Her scrutiny has led to the filing of criminal charges against corrupt public officials who abused their power or misspent taxpayer money, exposed the collection of improper fees and abuses by municipal courts and has led the way in strengthening cybersecurity in schools and government offices.

Prior to taking office, Auditor Galloway served as treasurer of Boone County, managing a $100 million investment portfolio and nearly $200 million in annual revenues, protected the county’s leading bond rating and saved taxpayers more than $4.6 million.

Galloway comes from a union family. Her great grandfather worked on the Gateway Arch as a member of Operating Engineers Local 513, and she has numerous uncles, cousins and other family members who are also members of Local 513.

She earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Missouri and degrees in Applied Mathematics and Economics from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

The only Democratic statewide office holder in Missouri, Galloway has led on family-friendly policies such as paid parental leave and is Missouri’s first statewide office holder to have a baby while in office.

• St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, a longtime champion of union labor and working families in St. Louis County both as a member of the County Council and as the county’s top elected official.

Stenger grew up in Affton, the youngest of four children. His father was a union telephone lineman with Southwestern Bell.

A 1990 graduate of Bishop DuBourg High School, Stenger graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, became a Certified Public Accountant and went on to attend law school at St. Louis University. After law school, he went to work as an attorney and CPA at the firm of Ernst & Young, and later started the law firm Klar, Izsak and Stenger.

He represented the 6th District on the St. Louis County Council for two terms before voters elected him to serve as St. Louis County Executive in 2014.

An unwavering voice for working people, he has provided strong leadership for working families, including, but not limited to, creating the first prescription drug monitoring database (PDMP) in Missouri (after the state refused to act) to track the sale of opioids and other prescription drugs; putting the opioid overdose treatment Narcan in every police car; spearheading passage of Proposition P, a dedicated law enforcement sales tax to increase the pay of county police, hire 100 new officers, purchase new equipment and enhance community safety; championing policies that have generated more than $5 billion in economic development, creating and retaining more than 30,000 jobs; and making investments in North County to reopen Northwest Plaza and reinvigorate Jamestown Mall.

• St. Louis City License Collector Mavis Thompson, an outspoken voice for working people and the only African-American female to serve the City of St. Louis in two different citywide elected offices, having served as the first female Circuit Clerk and the current License Collector.

Born and raised in the City of St. Louis, Thompson still resides in her childhood home in the Jeff Vander Lou neighborhood. A graduate of Lutheran High School North, she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing and law degree from the University of Missouri and is also a graduate of the JFK School of Government at Harvard.

Since taking office as License Collector in 2014, Thompson has overseen significant major accomplishments in how the office operates, including publishing informational business license literature in Braille, Spanish, Bosnian and Vietnamese to accommodate the city’s evolving multicultural demographics; convening annual business forums; establishing a comprehensive business closure policy; providing funding for the inaugural STL Youth Jobs; introducing new payment methods for business licenses; initiating the City Business Open House series; increasing staff salaries to reflect job duties; implementing the use of wireless technology to improve the efficiency of field staff; coordinating and hosting the first annual Food Truck Festival in downtown St. Louis; and making it possible for business owners to file for business licenses online.

Thompson also volunteers her time working with youth, senior citizens and young professionals, and actively mentors middle and high-school students, law students and new attorneys. Her personal motto is, “Each one must teach one.”

TICKETS

Tickets are $125 each or $1,250 for a table of 10.

RSVP to Gina Knoll at 314-647-0628 or email gina@stlbctc.org.