Gaylan Z. Prescott

The USW Executive Board named Gaylan Prescott the new District 12 Director in December 2019 following the untimely death of Director Robert LaVenture.

A longtime union activist and leader, Prescott had served as the assistant to Director LaVenture since January 2018.

After graduating from high school in his hometown of Kelso, Wash., Prescott earned his EMT certification and spent several seasons working alongside migrant farmers on a hop and grape ranch.

He then followed in the footsteps of his father and several other family members, working for nearly 20 years at the former Reynolds Metals Co. aluminum reduction plant in Longview, Wash. Prescott worked as a casting machine operator and pot tender at the factory.

Prescott was originally a member of the Aluminum, Brick and Glass Workers International Union, which later merged with the USW.

Prescott launched his career as a union leader and activist in 1986 when he became a shop steward in the pot rooms at the Reynolds plant. In 1990, he was elected to his first of three terms as president of the Longview Federated Aluminum Council, which represented about 700 workers who belonged to multiple unions throughout the facility.

In 1999, the union hired Prescott to assist the 2,900 members who were locked out at five Kaiser Aluminum plants in Washington, Ohio and Louisiana, in what would become one of the longest and most contentious work stoppages in the union’s history.

The USW named Prescott a staff representative in December 1999, and named him sub-director of District 12, Sub-District 3, in 2012.

Prescott also served president of the Northwest Conference of Aluminum Councils, a coalition of northwestern U.S. smelter unions, and was elected to the ABG Executive Council just prior to that union’s merger with the USW. Prescott also served on the board of directors of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, an early labor-environmental partnership that was a precursor to the BlueGreen Alliance.

The headquarters for District 12 is in Castle Rock, CO.