By Don McIntosh
Machinists District Lodge W24 has a new top officer. Wayne Thompson, 57, was sworn in Jan. 8 as president and directing business representative, the same day predecessor Noel Willet retired.
District Lodge W24 represents 5,300 machinists and woodworkers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Northern California. Thompson was the district lodge’s assistant directing business representative. Now he’ll serve the remainder of Willet’s term of office, which runs through December 2022.
Wayne Thompson
Thompson grew up in Puyallup, Wash. After working as a logger a few years, he joined the Army in 1984, and served as a non-commissioned officer in the 1st Armored Division during the 1991 Gulf War. While stationed in Germany he met an Army medic, Kristine Pierce. They married in 1992, left the Army, and returned to Western Washington, where she embarked on a career as a teacher and he got a union job with good benefits at Simpson Lumber in Tacoma, Wash.