William C. Walpert
National Secretary-Treasurer
walpert@ble-t.org
(216) 241-2630 ext. 218
Quotation
"If we could but clear the lens of our perception, we could see
paradise." - William Blake
William C. Walpert is National Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a Division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
He was initially elected to the position of General Secretary-Treasurer at the former BLE's Seventh Quinquennial International Convention on September 26, 2001, in Miami Beach, Fla. He was the reelected by acclamation to the BLET's top financial post at the BLET's First Quadrennial Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 19, 2006. He was reelected to office a third time by a wide majority of members in the first rank and file vote in the BLET's 148-year history on December 16, 2010.
As General Secretary-Treasurer of the BLE, he was in charge of the BLE Finance Committee that helped merge the BLE with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. As National Secretary-Treasurer of the BLET, he is in custody of all funds of the BLET and has supervision over the financial and record department personnel of the BLET. He is under direction of the Executive Committee in regard to matters pertaining to his duties.
Brother Walpert also heads the BLET's Education & Training Department and serves as national chairman of the BLET's Safety Task Force, the rail industry's first employee-based accident investigation team. Walpert also serves as director of the BLE's Internal Organizing and Mobilizing & Strategic Planning Department.
Brother Walpert joined BLE Division 172 in Ft. Worth, Texas, on Nov. 1, 1973, transferring to BLE Division 604 in Sherman, Texas, in 1991. During his 30 years with the BLET, Walpert has served as General Chairman on the St. Louis & San Francisco/Burlington Northern Railway General Committee of Adjustment from 1984-1992, and as seventh and then fourth alternate international vice-presidents, from 1986-1991. In addition, he has been Chairman of the Southwestern Convention Meeting's Scholarship Committee since 1984.
His first railway position came in 1973 as a fireman for the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad in Ft. Worth, and his promotion to locomotive engineer for Frisco came in 1974. Brother Walpert comes from a rich railroad heritage, as his grandfather, father and brother all worked in the rail industry.
A 1972 graduate of Southwest Missouri State University with a master's degree in creative writing, he and his wife Janet live in Twinsburg, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
