This week we’re in-studio with a brother from 170 miles east — Ben Collier, Business Manager of UA Local 248, serving Plumbers, Steamfitters, and HVACR Technicians across 24 counties of Eastern Kentucky.
Local 248 was chartered in 1916, making them 110 years old this year. Ben walks us through the full arc: the early industrial era built on the C&O Railroad and Armco Steel, the boom years when the Ashland Works employed 7,500 workers, the brutal deindustrialization that followed when AK Steel finally closed and demolished the plant, and how Local 248 has reinvented itself for a post-coal Eastern Kentucky — including their work with SOAR transitioning coal miners into the pipe trades and an emerging nuclear workforce pathway.
Ben is also a Lead Pastor, a Governor-appointed board member, and one of the most thoughtful voices in the Appalachian workforce development conversation. This is a conversation between two UA Business Managers about history, reinvention, and what it actually takes to lead a local through a century of change.
Topics covered: Local 248’s 1916 charter story, the Armco Steel era, surviving deindustrialization, the opioid crisis and its impact on the trades, SOAR and the coal-to-trades pipeline, the new HVACR apprenticeship, and what’s next for Eastern Kentucky’s skilled workforce.
Learn more about UA Local 248: local248.com
UAsk502 is the podcast built by the trades, for the trades — straight from Louisville’s own Plumbers, Pipefitters & Service Techs of Local 502. Subscribe on YouTube and Spotify for new episodes.