INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has sworn in a new executive committee and elected eight new members to its advisory board, the union announced.
Edward A. Hall became the union’s new national president Jan. 1. He is joined on the executive committee by first vice president Mark L. Wallace and national secretary-treasurer David P. Estes. Hall, a Union Pacific engineer from Arizona, succeeds Dennis Pierce, who retired at the end of 2022, saving the union from rerunning a contested election in which Hall received the most votes [see “BLET president to retire …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 16, 2022].
Estes had been an Amtrak engineer in the Pacific Northwest; Wallace had previously been elected national vice president in 2018.
The advisory board is made up of the union’s 14 highest-ranking elected officials, including the three executive committee members, and services and the BLET’s primary policy-making body between conventions. A list of members and their biographical information is available on the BLET website.
The old guard was thrown out, vote on the contract was suspect so this is good.