Rich Peppers and Debby Herman Announcement

The AAUP Executive Council is extremely excited to announce the arrival of Rich Peppers and Debby Herman as part time, interim support for our union while the EC begins searching for a permanent staff. Both Rich and Debby have extensive background in the academic labor movement, and are eager to provide support to our members here at Portland State. Rich started January 7 and Debby will be joining us on January 24. Rich and Debby’s bios can be found below.

Debby: Debby comes to us with 26 years' experience in the academic labor movement. She has worked with a variety of classifications in K-12 and higher education, in addition to consulting work with nonprofits. She specializes in organizational analysis and development, including long-term strategy development, leadership development and training, campaign strategy, and communications. Her work is grounded in a member-leader organizing philosophy, based largely on her formative experience as a union leader with U.E. Local 896.  She holds a PhD from the University of Iowa's Educational Policy & Leadership Studies with a multi-disciplinary focus on the intersection of language politics, border studies, and education history. She is also an ICF-certified leadership coach. We are excited to have Debby joining the PSU-AAUP chapter this year!

Rich: In 2015, Rich retired from a 35-38 year career in the labor movement (depending on what to count) in New England, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, and ending in Oregon working at SEIU International/SEIU Local 503 (the local that represents PSU classified employees). In retirement, Rich has worked with PSU-AAUP (strategic planning workshops a couple of times) and has been fairly active (when not enjoying the perks of retirement) with the Climate Movement which Rich sees as an urgent issue.

Starting in 1993, Rich served as the Political Director for SEIU Local 503. After 10 years, Rich moved into the Assistant Executive Director role. SEIU Local 503 represents public employees at various levels of government but primarily state workers; as well as homecare, childcare, foster care and nursing home workers and many others.  In both roles Rich was part of the senior admin staff. In the 12 years as Assistant Executive Director Rich’s responsibilities included, among many other things, being the chief bargaining spokesperson at the statewide higher education classified workers' bargaining table every two years (and chief bargainer at the statewide Adult Foster Home Workers table as well); occasional bargaining-related work on grievances in higher ed as needed; and interim conversations with higher ed government relations people as needed.  All of these things required familiarity with bargaining laws for the public sector; working with member leaders in higher education during development of proposals, bargaining strategy, and contract campaigns.

While serving as Political Director, Rich was responsible for leading a member-driven lobby effort on a range of issues as diverse as our membership; and in election years, leading a member-driven strategic electoral engagement process.  

Rich’s spouse, Margaret Butler, may be known to some members as she was the Executive Director for two years at AAUP-Oregon before her retirement in 2017. Rich and Margaret  are both local (she's a born-and-bred Portlander), and reside in the Montavilla neighborhood.  Rich is looking forward to working with you all in the near future!