NEMIC Adds Two Members to National Leadership Team 

The National Energy Management Institute Committee has hired Ohio native Cassandra Kline as director of building construction technology, and Vince Alvarado, a longtime business manager for Sheet Metal Workers Local 49 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been named the Fund’s new director of implementation.

Kline now serves as a field representative to 150 local unions in the United States and Canada and is responsible for creating and implementing strategies for the use of new and existing technologies to expand skills and opportunities for members of the International Association of Sheet Metal Air, Rail and Transportation workers and signatory employers.

Kline, a second-generation sheet metal worker, graduated the sheet metal apprenticeship in 2020 and worked to gain the knowledge and skills to be hired as a part-time instructor at her alma mater, Sheet Metal Workers Local 33. Before being hired at NEMIC, she worked as a field supervisor for the testing, adjusting and balancing division and a service manager.

As NEMIC’s new director of implementation, Alvarado has been tasked with overseeing legislative initiatives and working to implement solutions that NEMIC identifies across the country.

Alvarado started in the sheet metal industry as a high school junior and went on to graduate from Sheet Metal Workers Local 49’s apprenticeship program. Later, he took leadership roles at the union, culminating in his election as business manager/financial secretary in 2010. After a few years in that role, he was also elected to serve in a statewide leadership role as president of the New Mexico Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, in 2018.

In both roles, Alvarado had to work with local politicians for the betterment of New Mexico residents. In 2019, Local 49 helped facilitate passage of SB 143 — the nation’s first statewide fire safety law. Alvarado subsequently worked with leaders in Nevada, New Jersey and Hawaii to pass similar legislation. In his new national role at NEMIC, Alvarado looks forward to helping people and organizations like Local 49 on a much larger scale.