FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, September 5, 2019

From:             St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Inc.       

Contact:        Hilary Beirne 718-231-4400 HBeirne@nycstpatricsparade.org

                        Sean Lane 718-231-4400

For Immediate Release

NEW YORK CITY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE® SELECTS

LONG ISLAND RESIDENT & LEGENDARY UNION LEADER 2020 GRAND MARSHAL

NEW YORK, NY, September 5, 2019 –The St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Inc. Board of Directors is pleased to announce they have selected James T. Callahan, General President of the International Union of Operating Engineers as the Grand Marshal of the 2020 New York City St Patrick’s Day parade. Mr. Callahan is a long time New Yorker residing on Long Island with his wife Fran and their children. Mr. Callahan is very proud of his Irish Heritage with grandparents emigrating from County Limerick and County Kerry in the early 1900s. As President of the International, Mr. Callahan represents over 400,000 workers in the United States and Canada. He is also President of the New York Friends of Ireland.

Mr. James T. Callahan will lead the marchers up Fifth Avenue on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 in the 259th New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. The Parade is the world’s oldest and largest civic parade and celebrates the faith of Ireland, Irish heritage and culture.

Sean Lane, Chairman of the Parade Board of Directors, said “We are delighted James Callahan has been selected as our 2020 Grand Marshal. He has contributed so much to the United States and New York. As a major union leader, he is representative of many of the hard-working Irish who immigrated to here in search of a better life. Our community has a strong tradition of union pride and he will make an outstanding and popular Grand Marshal.”

About the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade

The New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade marches in honor of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland and of the Archdiocese of New York. The Parade is held every year on March 17, (Except when March 17 falls on a Sunday, for religious reasons it is moved to the Saturday. The 2020 Parade will be held on Tuesday March 17 and starts at 11 am. It will begin at 44th Street and proceeds up Fifth Avenue to 79th street in Manhattan.

The New York City Saint Patrick’s Parade marched for the first time in 1762, fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Independence Hall, Philadelphia.  The Parade is regarded as the most popular of the all the Parades in New York City. The New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade consists only of marchers and each year hosts some 250,000 marchers and two million spectators. The Parade has many outstanding marching bands, bagpipers in marching formations, high-school and college bands from throughout the United States and from all over the world.

           The occasion is televised live to millions of households nationwide for four hours by host station WNBC Channel Four. The broadcast is webcast live via the internet through the Parade’s web site at NYCStPatricksParade.Org and WNBC Channel Four web site at www.wnbc.com

For additional information regarding the 2020 Grand Marshal and Parade events leading up to the Parade, contact Hilary Beirne atHBeirne@NYCStPatricksParade.Org or at the Parade Office 718-231-4400 or visit the Parade web site at NYCStPatricksParade.Org

Grand Marshal of the 2020 New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade

JAMES T. CALLAHAN

JAMES T. CALLAHAN is the General President of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), a union that resents over 400,000 men and women in the United States and Canada. Jim Callahan is a proud Irish American with his Irish lineage extending from Co Limerick through his grandparents, John Joseph and Alice Callahan and Co Kerry through Michael Francis Lyon, who was also an Operating Engineer. Jim is the President of the New York Friends of Ireland and through the Operating Engineers, he led the delegation to Derry, Ireland for the opening of the James Connolly Cultural Center.

President Callahan is a 40-year member and third generation Operating Engineer, who moved up the ranks from Member to Shop Steward, Foreman, Trustee, Business Representative and ultimately in 2003, led Local 15 in New York City as President and Business Manager. President Callahan began his career in the Operating Engineers in 1980. Proficient in all aspects of maintenance and repair, he was initiated into Local 15C as a shop mechanic.  By 1993, he had worked his way up to maintenance foreman and was an integral part of the team that worked on the World Trade Center site in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing of the parking garage that killed and injured dozens of people. Eight years later, as a local union Business Representative, President Callahan found himself back at the World Trade Center.  This time, he was one of the many Operating Engineers who were first responders to the September 11 tragedy and stayed to work throughout the entire recovery effort at Ground Zero. In 2003, President Callahan became the 4thPresident and Business Manager of the IUOE, Local 15 whose jurisdiction expands the five boroughs of New York City.  As Business Manager, Jim was an Executive Board member of the New York City Building and Construction Trades Council; the New York City Central Labor Council, the Building and Construction Trades Councils of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, the Construction Industry Council of Westchester and Putnam Counties, the Executive Committees of the New York City and New York State AFL-CIO and the Governing Board of Presidents for North America’s Building Trades Unions. Jim was a member of the Board of Governors of the New York Building Foundation and a member of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens Manhattan and Staten Island Boards of Business Agents and Trustee on the IUOE Central Pension Fund.  He also sat on the prestigious Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Blue Ribbon Commission whose purpose is to oversee all MTA projects throughout the City.

Jim and his wife, Fran, are the proud parents to James, Ian and Patrick and reside in Long Island.

About the IUOE

The IUOE is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and it represents over 400,000 men and women in the United States and Canada who work as heavy equipment operators, mechanics and surveyors in the construction industry, as well as stationary engineers who work in the operation and maintenance of industrial and commercial buildings such as schools, hospitals, offices, powerhouses, sports arenas and the like, in both countries. The IUOE also represents nurses and other health industry workers, public employees in a wide variety of occupations and a number of job classifications in the petro-chemical industry.