When it began to look as if the electrical work on Kaiser Permanente's upgraded Watts Counseling and Learning Center in South Central Los Angeles might need a push to get finished by the project's deadline, the site's general foreman knew he could call on Los Angeles Local 11's John Harriel Jr. for some additional help.

Harriel, better known as Big John, is chairman of Los Angeles Local 11's executive board and a superintendent and diversity manager with IBEW signatory contractor Morrow-Meadows. He's also a longtime volunteer facilitator with Second Chance at Loving Life, or 2nd Call, a community-based nonprofit organization whose staff members emphasize mutual support while teaching life skills, career classes and trades to at-risk and proven-risk men and women.

"The biggest role of 2nd Call is to provide a pathway for facilitation and mentoring," said Harriel, who often steers conversations toward careers in the trades. Like the IBEW, he said, "No one's turning their backs on someone who spent time in prison or didn't go to high school."

The Kaiser Permanente project's foreman, with signatory contractor Briggs Electric, had worked successfully on a previous project with Harriel and his group of Local 11 members who are also 2nd Call participants, known as the Wolfpack. The foreman knew that the job would get done.

So did Harriel, who understands how a career in the trades can provide a pathway toward a solid middle-class career, not to mention a much-needed second chance. A self-described one-time thug from South Central, Harriel was serving a five-year sentence in an Illinois prison when he was tasked to help an IBEW electrician who was working on site. Not only did Harriel learn a trade through this experience, but he also learned that the IBEW would not hold his past against him. After Harriel returned to Los Angeles in 1997, he was initiated into the IBEW and started working for Morrow-Meadows, eventually becoming a foreman in 2004.

As a volunteer with 2nd Call since soon after the organization was founded in 2005, Harriel has worked with hundreds of people, helping them deal with such things as lifelong trauma, anger and depression while also teaching them personal development and career skills.

"Brother Harriel and the Wolfpack epitomize what the IBEW is all about in their continuous community involvement and showing how anyone can succeed given an opportunity and second chance," said Ninth District International Vice President David Reaves.

For this Kaiser Permanente job, Harriel and his Wolfpack crew "were like paratroopers coming in. We had a team in place in eight hours," he said. "It was a real testimony to the power of the Brotherhood."

The original counseling center opened two years after the 1965 civil unrest that had been centered in Watts. It provides mental health and educational resources to all families from the neighborhood and nearby communities, even if they aren't Kaiser Permanente members. The company had promised the community that an upgraded facility on 103rd Street would be open by early 2024.

With five weeks to go before Kaiser Permanente's deadline over the summer, the Wolfpack assembled the project's various and extensive punch lists, and then quickly set out to wrap up all the remaining task items, everything from roof lights to conduits, working 10-hour shifts six days a week to get the job done.

"For Briggs, it had been their first time working on this type of project," Harriel said, and the work had been progressing.

"What is beautiful was the relationship we brought to the project," Harriel said, noting that there was no finger-pointing or second-guessing. "We said, 'How can we help?'"

"Kaiser saw this teamwork happening," he added. "That gets us in good graces with Kaiser as a whole."

What also helped is that most of the Wolfpack crew, like Harriel, is from that community, and some might use the building's services at some point. "I never believed in being successful and then leaving my community," he said. "I stay here and help them out."

More recently, Harriel has been helping his Morrow-Meadows colleagues with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

"We have to get people uncomfortable [to] help people from the community get in leadership positions," he said. "Let's let the tide rise all."

(Learn more about Harriel's journey in the April/May 2007 edition of the IBEW Journal and in the May 2020 and November 2022 editions of The Electrical Worker, all available at ibew.org/media-center.)

Armed with enthusiasm and curiosity, young women and girls from all around Boston descended on Local 103 for the annual Massachusetts Girls in Trades career fair, an event the local has hosted since 2015.

"Local 103 has made it possible for our eastern conference to happen," said Sarah Adams, program manager for Massachusetts Girls in Trades, or MAGIT. "Especially as we've grown these last seven years and gained momentum, their kind donations of staff and a venue have made all the difference."

Massachusetts Girls in Trades was launched eight years ago by a partnership of educational, governmental and union organizations to encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in the trades. Since its inception, Local 103 has been a partner, offering facilities and other resources for the annual career fairs.

"103 gets to do what we do best, and that's organize," Business Manager Lou Antonellis said. "Our women are actively recruiting and encouraging these students to take a good, hard look at a career in the IBEW for their future. Hosting the event just proves that we're leading Boston's labor movement in diversity, especially when it comes to attracting women to our trade."

In addition to hosting the event, which took place in November, Local 103 had members from its Women's Committee on hand, as well as signatory contractors and instructors, to answer questions from the attendees, about 450 of whom were students. The girls also heard from Chrissy Lynch, the first woman president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and state Sen. Lydia Edwards, who is the product of a union household and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

"Senator Edwards is a force to be reckoned with," said Renee Dozier, Local 103 business agent and a MAGIT steering committee member. "She's strong, she's intelligent, she speaks several languages, and she's not afraid to say 'union' or 'PLA [project labor agreement].' She's a real example of girl power."

The event, which is free to female high school students and their educators, gave the girls a chance to hear from a panel of tradeswomen about what a day on the job is like and how they can join. Dozier said the girls came with a lot of questions, proving their interest, and that a number of teachers asked if Local 103 could come out to their schools to continue the conversation — especially the part about women members getting paid the same as their male counterparts.

"The partnerships we form and maintain with our community groups and the schools is really the driving force," she said. "The want and the need are there, so we're happy to facilitate."

The conference, which also had members of Brockton Local 223 in attendance, has grown so much over the years that there is now a second event in western Massachusetts, which included representatives from Springfield Local 7. Adams said they had almost 40 organizations and 26 schools participate in the eastern conference.

"I see these young girls and I am excited for their future," Dozier said. "I see them bright-eyed and ambitious and it reminds me of what it was like to be young and open to exploring new ideas, experiences and possibilities. They are potentially choosing a career path here and we're responsible for giving them the right information. And of course, we want that career to be with us."

Dozier said it was particularly helpful to have the Local 103 Women's Committee members there because some of them had come from the area's vocational schools themselves and are now proud journey workers and JATC instructors.

"Some of these girls don't even know the power in the room and how it will affect their future careers, but some of us older ones do, and that part makes me smile," she said.