Member Spotlight: Meet Tim Mulqueen

By Evan Henerson

Tim Mulqueen doesn’t have much use for downtime.

When he’s not working as an inside wireman for Southland E&I Services, the longtime Local 11 member and ETI instructor is an active father to four children. How active? Well, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, he has scoutmaster commitments for the troops of each of his three youngest children.

Well, that still leaves Thursday and Friday nights for leisure, right?

“Actually, I’ll probably be going back to teaching on Thursday nights,” says Mulqueen with a laugh. “Most of my days start at 4 a.m. and have me getting home at 9 p.m. But one of the nice things about working in refineries is we have four 10-hour days, so I usually get Fridays off.”

It’s not like this work and family-life balance is a new thing in the Mulqueen household. Mulqueen has coached the Little League and soccer teams for son Colin (age 14), and daughters Kieran (12) and Camryn (7). In addition to the three kids still at home, Mulqueen and his wife, Nandar, also have older son, Aidan, who is a freshman at the University of Hawaii.

Work keeps Mulqueen plenty busy as well. With nearly 20 years as a certified instrumentation technician under his belt, Mulqueen has enjoyed a successful career that has taken him to job sites across the Southland. Since turning out of the apprenticeship program in 2004, the Pasadena native has worked at locations ranging from the Los Angeles Zoo to numerous schools to LAX as well as several power plants. Once he started working at refineries, Mulqueen began to get a glimpse of the world of instrumentation, and he decided he’d like to try that, too.

“I was doing all the conduit work and the wiring, and I would see someone else show up and be there to start everything up and do the testing,” Mulqueen said. “So, I took instrumentation training through the ETI program. It’s like learning a whole new trade. Having our electrical background is a huge advantage, but we have to learn a lot of new skills on top of that.”

Having mastered those skills himself, Mulqueen has been teaching instrumentation through the ETI since 2006. He views teaching as a means of “giving back the knowledge that I learned,” thereby hoping to make his students more employable and helping the industry. Earlier in his career, Mulqueen’s involvement with Local 11 included working with the District 6 Welfare Committee, serving on the apprenticeship student council and volunteering for various political campaigns. He credits Jane Templin, and the late Dave Wenderlich and Kim Craft as mentors.

“I definitely take being part of a union to heart,” he said. “I see the benefit of having a union, and it means a lot to be involved and help out in any way you can to make it better for everybody.”