ASSE Spotlight

DOREEN CANNON, ASSE INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

By the time most people hit their stride in one career, Doreen Cannon had already reinvented herself completely. In 1998, as her son Tommy started kindergarten, Cannon began a journey that would define her legacy in the skilled trades. That same year, she entered the UA Plumbers Local 55 Apprenticeship program, embarking on a new career path with Northern Ohio Plumbing. Over the next five years, she completed her apprenticeship, laying the foundation for a career that serves as inspiration to generations of tradeswomen.

“I actually have a college degree, and I was in retail management and buying for years,” she says. “And then when my son was born, I stayed home. After a few years when I decided to go back into the working field, I wanted something different. I always liked working with my hands. My father was a pipe fitter, a maintenance pipe fitter by trade.”

A visit to a career fair aimed at attracting more women into the trades sparked her interest in plumbing.

“I found an all-women, pre-apprenticeship readiness program, so I went through that,” she says. “It was a six-week program and then I decided on the plumbers after going to the career fair and talking to all the different trades.” The support of the all-women’s program proved vital.

“I think going through that all-women’s pre-apprenticeship program definitely helped because all the instructors within that program were tradeswomen who had already been working in the field,” she says. “So, I think that took away some of that hesitation as far as going out into a male-dominated field.”

Her experience in the union apprenticeship also eased the transition.

“What made it easy was going through the apprenticeship at Local 55 Plumbers; all the training was included, right?” she says. “It’s laid out for you. So really, once you get in the program, you’re good as long as you follow the training and meet the requirements of each year during the apprenticeship.”

From the field, where she worked for 14 years, Cannon transitioned into education. In 2012, she became a full-time evening instructor at the Plumbers Local 55 JATC training center, teaching light commercial trainees, service trainees, and continuing education courses for journeymen. In 2018, she moved to a daytime role, training commercial apprentices across various stages of their five-year programs.

Her first teaching experience, however, came much earlier.

“I actually started teaching one class right after I became a journey level worker. Around 2004, I put together the first harassment class that was taught right at our training center,” she says. “At that time there was really nothing about harassment and construction. It was all office environment and things like that. So, I had to kind of create the entire class.”

Leadership quickly followed. After becoming a journeyman in 2003, Cannon served as chair of the Entertainment Committee. In 2006, she was elected to the Executive Board, and in 2011, she became the first woman elected President of Plumbers Local 55, a role she held until her retirement in 2022.

In 2014, Cannon was named chair the Cleveland Building Trades Tradeswomen Committee.

“It’s very hard to have a tradesman committee within each trade because, for example, there are so few female plumbers at Local 55; there are so few female electricians in the Cleveland electrician’s union, etc.,” she says. “A female carpenter and I thought, you know, we really need to somehow bring all the Cleveland tradeswomen together into a tradeswomen committee.”

With the support of David Wondolowski, executive secretary of the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council, the committee was formed.

“He was the driving force behind getting the support of the building trades,” she says. “And once we got the support of the building trades, then all the trades supported the idea of this Cleveland Building Trades Tradeswomen Committee, encouraging their women to get involved.”

In 2024, the committee became a nonprofit organization, now known as the Greater Cleveland Council of Tradeswomen. Cannon currently serves as its president. “We are now a nonprofit, which will help us going forward, as it opens us up to doing a lot more things.”

While recruitment is an important aspect of the Council’s work, Cannon emphasizes support and retention.

“More so, I think it’s a way of mentoring and supporting the retention of women in the trades, which is almost as difficult as recruiting women into them,” she says. “Construction is definitely a different environment and a different industry.”

Honest conversations about job conditions — working outdoors in extreme temperatures and performing physically demanding work —
are essential.

“Once we formed the tradeswoman committee, we were able to come together and just socialize,” she says. “It’s really nice because a lot of brand new apprentices will come and then there’ll be the retired women who have been in the industry for 25, 30 years.”

Cannon has also been a voice on a national level. Since 2020, she has served as the Northeast Region Director on the Board of Directors for ASSE International.

“I was a part of the Northern Ohio chapter for ASSE when I was an apprentice, so I was involved at the local level first.”

Recruited by ASSE President Jason Shank, a longtime colleague, Cannon found the organization’s mission aligned with her teaching roots.

“What ASSE does is really give opportunities through the standards and the qualifications that we offer to make someone a better plumber; to give them that additional training or that additional certification that makes somebody more employable,” she says. “We offer somebody a better background in why we do what we do in plumbing. You know, every time I do outreach or anything, I always proudly say ‘The plumber protects the health of the nation.’ So, that all ties in. When we have training that teaches you why we do what we do, that kind of all ties together.”

Cannon most appreciates the way ASSE’s programs balance education with accountability. “Getting a more in-depth look at what goes into creating a professional qualification, the whole idea behind the training and the testing, to me is very important because anybody can take a class, but let’s prove that you really absorbed and understand what we’re asking of you in order for you to personally carry this certification,” she says. “I think that’s important to me after being a instructor for so many years; to really make sure that, just like I was with my apprentices, let’s make sure they’re absorbing and learning what we’re trying to get them to learn.”

Now semi-retired, Cannon continues her work as a Recruitment and Program Certification consultant with Cleveland Builds. She was honored in 2017 as one of Crain’s Cleveland Business Women of Note and in 2021 as a NABTU Tradeswomen Hero.

Her son Tommy is newly married and living in Columbus, Ohio. In her free time, Cannon enjoys reading, working in her yard, and relaxing at her house on Catawba Island on Lake Erie.

Q4 2025

Last modified: November 3, 2025