Tammy Meyen, a member of International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART) workers Local 66 near Seattle, was named as the recruitment and retention specialist for the International Training Institute (ITI), the educational arm of the unionized sheet metal industry. In this role, she will focus on recruitment and retention efforts of apprentices at 150 training centers across the United States and Canada, finding ways to bring more people into the industry and help ensure they find it a welcoming environment.  

Meyen’s father was a union roofer, and she remembers her father encouraging her to look into sheet metal, so they might someday work side-by-side on a job site. Thanks to him, she learned early that union brotherhood and sisterhood can be like family. 

Meyen began her own career in 1999, at the age of 19 as an apprentice, and graduated near the top of her class at Western Washington Sheet Metal in 2005. Over the past 19 years, she worked at PSF Mechanical, one of the Northwest’s leading full-service commercial mechanical firms, rising to the position of shop foreperson in 2011. 

At her home local, Meyen was a member of the finance committee and served multiple terms as a trustee. She sits on the Belonging and Excellence for All Committee, a joint effort of SMART, the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association and the institute. She also  chairs Local 66’s women’s committee and heads that committee’s mentor program. 

Meyen and her husband, a fellow sheet metal worker who serves as organizer with Local 66, live in Snohomish, Washington, with their two  daughters.  

More than 14,000 apprentices are registered at 150 training facilities across the United States and Canada. The ITI is jointly sponsored by SMART and SMACNA. 

ITI supports apprenticeship and advanced career training for union workers in the sheet metal heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), welding and industrial, architectural and ornamental, and service and testing, adjusting and balancing industry throughout the United States and Canada. The ITI develops and produces a standardized sheet metal curriculum supported by a wide variety of training materials free of charge to sheet metal apprentices and journey workers.