Business Rep Mike Grill To Retire in Spring of 2016
By Rebecca Band
Grill’s staff photo from 2003
Motorcycle enthusiast, poet, engineer, sculptor. All of these words can describe IBEW 1245 Business Representative Mike Grill, who will be retiring this spring after 18 years as a union staffer and 36 years as an IBEW Local 1245 member.
“We’ve had great representation in Fresno. You have made us proud,” Business Manager Tom Dalzell told Grill at the October meeting of the Advisory Council. “As you ride off into the sunset, we thank you and wish you well.”
“It has been an honor to represent my brothers and sisters,” Grill told the Advisory Council. “I want to thank Tom, and the staff, and the Executive Board and all my friends. I hope to see you again.”
Grill has worked ardently to represent the members, and has also embraced every opportunity to strengthen the brotherhood of the union. Together with former Business Rep Brian Kapaun, Grill launched and coordinated the Howard Stiefer Memorial Motorcycle Rally in 2013, where he combined his love of bikes with his love for the union.
Grill is well-known as a biker, but he also has a softer, more artistic side. He loves to sculpt, and fancies himself as a bit of a poet as well. In 2012, when California’s labor unions were threatened by the union-busting Proposition 32, Grill penned this poem:
Grill supporting the Employee Free Choice Act in 2009
We once were many but are becoming few
The jealous and greedy attack us for what we have earned for all of you
We only want an equal share of the wealth that we produce
But the most wealthy still fear us and they call us names and spread lies to take our rights
So now we must all raise our heads and lock our arms to save all of our Families’ lives
AND DEFEAT PROP 32
My name is Union and I will never die because my life lives through the work we do
Before he was hired on at PG&E, Grill’s prior jobs were as varied as his hobbies. He worked as a mortgage loan officer, an office manager for a lighting company, and a quotations specialist at General Electric.
His GE factory training is what lead him to apply for a job as an Engineer’s Aid at PG&E in 1980. At that time, the company had just begun construction on the Kerckhoff 2 Hydro-Electric Plant, and Grill was initially assigned to work in the on-site water and soils laboratory. In late 1981, he became an Inspector “D” and put in charge of the Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Project Schedule and report for the Kerckhoff 2 plant. In 1983, he was transferred to the Geysers to work the construction of Unit 20, but just a few months later, he was loaned from G.C. Hydro to G.C. Station to work as an Office Engineer.
Grill with fellow members of the PG&E Bargaining Committee in 1996
Grill also worked as a Meter Reader, Gas Service Rep, and Service Operator. His work for the union included service as a shop steward and serving on the Hiring Hall, General Bargaining, and Review Committees before hiring on as a Business Representative for IBEW 1245 in 1998.
Grill has been there for his members and their families in good times and bad. During the October 2015 Advisory Council meeting, IBEW 1245 Business Manager Tom Dalzell recounted a memorable experience he shared with Grill many years ago.
Business Manager Tom Dalzell thanked Grill for his years of service at the October 2015 Advisory Council meeting
“Mike Grill and I did something together that I will remember for the rest of my life,” Dalzell told the Advisory Council in October. Dalzell said. “When Jim Lynn died very suddenly, Mike and I went over to his house in Fresno. [Jim’s] family had cleared out by then, but there, on the dining room table, was the homework that his youngest daughter was doing when the police chaplain had come to the door to tell her mom that her dad had died. Just to walk into that house and to see where our brother had lived, that was a rough moment.”
Grill says he will miss his colleagues and members, but is excited to rebuild the 350 Chevy motor that has been sitting in his garage for years, get better acquainted with his Harleys, and spend more time with his family.
And the art world better watch out.
“I have also been collecting wood and stone and plan to start doing sculptures again,” said Grill.
We hope he’ll come back to Weakley Hall from time to time and share some of his art with us.