IL SR0621

Illinois Senate congratulates Eric M. Dean on his retirement as president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, effective December 31, 2025

Dean is a fourth-generation Chicago ironworker who joined Local Union No. 63's apprenticeship program in December 1980 and served over four decades in the labor movement

Career progression included journeyman, foreman, apprentice instructor, local union officer (1989), general organizer (1999), Chicago District Council president (2005), 9th general vice president (2008), and general secretary (2011)

Unanimously elected general president on April 22, 2015, effective July 1, 2015, and subsequently elected to a five-year term at the 43rd International Convention in August 2016

Served on the AFL-CIO Executive Council and North America's Building Trades Unions Governing Board, representing 130,000 union ironworkers