Connie was the oldest son of a share cropper in North Carolina. Connie's formal education was cut short by his family's need for him to work in the fields at a young age. But he was able to join Lodge 154 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a Boilermaker, and soon became a successful general foreman running several large boiler projects in the 1970s.

In the 1980's Connie became an organizer for our International Union, a field director of construction organizing, and an assistant to the International president. Did I mention he could type? Well, that leads me to my story.

As I mentioned earlier, Connie had spent all night in his hotel room typing a letter to the workers at Brown Steel Tank. Connie had placed a dictionary on his desk and began to look up every word before he typed them, with one or two fingers, to make sure that he had spelled each word correctly. Connie felt that workers deserved a proper letter. Connie said it took some time to type out each word, but that he would get to a word like “and” or “the” and he could type those at a faster clip.

As the night grew longer and with the letter almost finished, Connie received a telephone call from the gentleman in the next room. The gentleman was courteous, but he had a question. He asked Connie when he thought he might get through with that letter he'd been typing, key stroke after key stroke, all night. Connie replied that it would not be much longer and asked him if it was the noise that bothered him. The gentleman replied that it was not so much the noise that was keeping him awake — it was the suspense of listening to the silence between each key stroke.

And so perhaps you now see what I later learned about Connie Ray Mobley, his life, his commitment to his fellow workers and why it is such a powerful example of courage and commitment to one's cause in life. For Connie, I truly believe that he overcame the limits of his formal education and that the act of typing a proper letter with two fingers and a dictionary was that one more thing he could do in his effort to organize the workers at Brown Steel Tank.

Brothers and Sisters, I believe that the point of this story is that we have it in us, in each of us, to overcome whatever limitations we may think we have and do our very best in service to our fellow workers and members.