Terence M. O'Sullivan

Terence M. O'Sullivan
O'Sullivan speaking in Dublin, Ireland, October 2013
Born	(1955-06-29) June 29, 1955 (age 61) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Alma mater	American University
Occupation	Activist

Terence M. O'Sullivan (born June 29, 1955) is a labor union activist and, since 1999, president of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA).

O'Sullivan was born in San Francisco, California, in 1955. His father, Terence J. O'Sullivan was an official in the Laborers' Union, and the family moved to Virginia in 1968 after his father was elected the international union's secretary-treasurer. (His father was indicted in 1981 in a kickback scheme but acquitted.)

O'Sullivan attended American University in Washington, D.C. He majored in business administration, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1974. While still in college, he earned money working as a laborer for a company building the city's subway system, Metro. It was during this time that he first joined the Laborers' Union (Local 456).

After matriculating, O'Sullivan was a high school teacher and baseball coach in West Virginia for three years. In 1978, O'Sullivan started a computer services company. He married and then later separated from his wife, and has a son, Brendan, and a daughter, Caitlin.

In 1987, O'Sullivan's teaching and computer interests converged when he was appointed an instructor at the West Virginia Laborers' Training Fund. In that position, he taught training seminars and helped blue-collar laborers learn how to program and operate new, computerized heavy machinery. As head of the training fund, O'Sullivan joined LIUNA Local 1353 in Charleston, West Virginia. In 1989, he became the fund's administrator.

In 1993, LIUNA president Arthur Coia appointed O'Sullivan assistant director of the international union's construction, maintenance and service trades department. O'Sullivan moved his family to Clifton, Virginia. During his tenure as assistant director of the department, O'Sullivan convinced the union to build a number of new training centers on the country.