Milwaukee, WI – IBEW Local 494 would like to welcome Ryan Neibauer to our local leadership team, serving as Political Director and Business Representative. Mr. Neibauer comes to us with a strong and varied background of political and community experiences, and we are very excited to have him join our team to serve in this role.

This position just prior to Ryan joining the team was filled by John Zapfel who in the fall of 2021 was promoted to serve the IBEW membership nationally as an International Representative and Grassroots Coordinator. “On behalf of myself, the Local 494 leadership team and local membership, I would like to welcome Ryan Neibauer to our team and am very excited to have him join us”, said Local 494 Business Manager and Financial Secretary Dean Warsh.

“Ryan brings to the position a unique professional background that includes working politically at the local, state and national levels outside and within the organized labor movement; as well as serving in the areas of healthcare, community service and organizing, and public health. We are so confident in his strengths and skills as a leader and advocate, as he leads the charge of our local union’s political program and continues to strengthen our political and union power throughout southeast Wisconsin and statewide”, added Mr. Warsh.

Just prior to joining Local 494, Ryan served as a member of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) COVID Response and Recovery vaccination senior leadership team in the role of statewide Operations Lead. Earlier in 2021, he served the city of Milwaukee’s vaccination efforts as a Site Coordinator with the Milwaukee Health Department’s (MHD) Emergency Preparedness COVID Response Team and as Site Lead at the joint MHD / FEMA Wisconsin Center mass vaccination clinic.

Politically, in late 2020 he worked the US Senate runoff election in the state of Georgia, was the Biden / Harris campaign’s state Organized Labor Director during Joe Biden’s successful campaign for president here in Wisconsin and in early 2020 was the State Field Director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. He has traveled to a total of 10 different states outside of Wisconsin to work on either union or electoral campaigns and is very excited to hit the ground running for the 2022 campaign cycle here in the dairy state.

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