Yvonne Harry

Ironworkers International recipient of the 2025 Meritorious Service Award, and 2025 (WA Women in Trades) Trades Women of the Year

Biography

Started my journey with the TRAC (Trades Related Apprenticeship Coaching) program in 2006, learning exactly what an apprenticeship was, and the opportunities it offered to change the course of my life. The class introduced me to the Laborers, Carpenters and Ironworkers; but I fell in love with Ironwork, and was enrolled into the apprenticeship and on the job working by early 2007.

Upon completion of my apprenticeship in 2011, I quickly grew into Foreman and General Foreman roles for local contractors and large scale projects around the PNW.

Helping countless women enter the building trades over the years, in 2018 we founded the Ironworker’s first ever Women’s Committee. Setting the gold standard for Ironworkers Diversity committees here in Seattle; we've helped multiple other Unions around the Country as well as up in Canada form and sustain their own Diversity Committees in the years since.

Serving on the Ironworkers Local 86 Executive Board, I am also the first woman to be elected by her peers as the Local Union’s Recording Secretary, while simultaneously working with contractors out in the field.

Looking forward into 2026, I’ll be moving from the field to the classroom as an Instructor with our new Ironworker Apprentices, teaching the next generation exactly what it takes to have a successful, life-long career up on the high steel.