WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — Oregon native Jennifer Dorning, an associate member of the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), has been appointed president of the national AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees (DPE), a post she started Sept. 1. She succeeded Paul Almedia, who retired, and will serve the last three years of his term. She’s the first woman to hold the DPE’s top post.
DPE is a coalition of 24 national unions representing more than four million professional, technical, and other highly skilled workers. DPE’s affiliates represent teachers, physicians, engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, nurses, university professors, actors, technicians, and others in more than 200 professional occupations.
Dorning joined the department in August 2010. Before that she was the assistant to the president and research director.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from Portland State University in 2000, she worked in the Oregon State Legislature as a legislative assistant for State Sen. Ginny Burdick from 2001 to 2005. She graduated cum laude from Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington in 2008, and passed the Oregon bar exam that year.
She then worked as an attorney in private practice representing clients in state civil commitment proceedings, as well as clients facing federal criminal prosecution, before joining the DPE.
SPEEA, which represents Boeing engineers, is the biggest local of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers’ (IFPTE). Dorning is also a former member of The Newspaper Guild.
