If elected to the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school board in a special election Aug. 9, Craig Angrimson won’t need a crash course in the issues that matter to union members.
Since exiting the U.S. Marine Corps, Angrimson has spent his career in the union movement, working for Northwest Airlines as a member of the Machinists union from 1987 to 2006 and, since then, as a chief wastewater operator for the Met Council and member of the Operating Engineers.
Within three years of taking his job with the Met Council, Angrimson was elected president of Operating Engineers Local 35, which recently merged with Local 49. After the merger, Angrimson was appointed to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation Committee on Political Education.
After working union his whole life, Angrimson has little time for those who would build or improve school buildings without a Project Labor Agreement, or seek to privatize the school district’s workforce. That’s a big reason why he’s the labor-endorsed candidate to fill the current vacancy on Independent School District 196’s board.
“I want all union labor because you get what you pay for,” Angrimson said. “Even if it’s just one area, once you open the door to privatization, it gives proponents the itch to keep it going.”
Angrimson’s roots in ISD 196 run deep. His daughter, Rachel, graduated from the district in 2015. Now that she’s in college, Angrimson has more time to give back to the community – and the “strength and knowledge to make the important decisions necessary,” he said.
Angrimson and his wife, Gail, adopted Rachel from Ecuador, and he believes the experience will inform the decisions he makes on the board of a district with 33 percent students of color. He also pledges to be transparent in making decisions, to promote fiscal responsibility and to be an advocate for the district at the legislative level.
And as a past union president, he said, “I know how to run a meeting; I know the decorum and won’t get fazed by any hecklers.”
