Meet our team

Tabitha Tripp

Campaign Director

Tripp is an artist, activist, and the wife of a track foreman in Southern Illinois and has been with the Public Rail Now campaign since its inception. As Director she has focused on project management, fundraising, organizational development, and administration. Her passion for Public Rail Now is rooted in her long standing advocacy with grassroots groups to support just transitions for labor and clean energy solutions for a sustainable future since 2013. 

Adam Barrington

National Organizer

Barrington is a labor organizer, author, and amateur historian and sociologist from Cleveland, Ohio. As lead organizer for RWU’s Public Rail Ownership campaign, Adam is building worker power and solidarity while nurturing collaboration between unions, environmentalist groups, activists, and community organizations. Prior to joining RWU, Adam served as an executive board member for SEIU District 1199 in Cleveland, and earlier as president of the Washoe chapter of AFSCME Local 4041 in Reno, Nevada. Adam’s first book, The U.S. Labor Movement in the 20th and Early 21st Century: A Critical Analysis, was published in 2023 by Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Our Advisory Board

Nicole holds a Doctorate in Physical Therapy and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy. She brings to the advisory board a deep commitment to union and political organizing, with extensive experience in strategic planning and movement building.
Nicole has served as Vice Chair of the professional bargaining unit of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) and has contributed to numerous other committees within OFNHP. Her leadership extends to broader labor initiatives, including the AFL-CIO Oregon Women Labor Leaders, the Oregon Labor Candidate School Advisory Committee, and the Hospital Ethics Committee

Tommy Carden is a Staff Coordinator with the United Electrical Workers (UE). Tommy directs UE’s Green Locomotive Project through which the union fights to clean up over-polluted rail yards and create good, union jobs in green locomotive manufacturing. Before UE, Tommy was Associate Director at Warehouse Workers for Justice in Chicago.

Joel Kennedy began a career at the railway in 2003 at CP Rail’s back-shops (Weston Shops) located in Winnipeg, Canada, as a shopcraft worker. Joel worked as a Blacksmith Helper and Machinist Helper before becoming a Mobile Crane Operator, spending over 12,000 hours operating American-Ohio Diesel Electric and Rough Terrain cranes.

In 2014 Joel was elected as the workplace chairperson, before being elected President of his national Local (101R) in 2018 where he represented CP’s craft (trade) workers.
In his present role as Unifor’s National Rail Director, he is responsible for overseeing collective bargaining, legislative and regulatory affairs, litigation, and develops Sector specific Union education for Unifor’s rail sector. In additional to this role, Joel has been elected to the International Transportation Federation’s (ITF) Railway Section Steering Committee, where he advocates to improve working conditions for railway workers globally.

Giancarlo Valdetaro is a Legislative Associate at the Green New Deal Network, where he covers the organization’s transportation policy portfolio. In this role, he has worked with congressional offices on improving existing legislation and writing original bills, built relationships with labor unions whose work touches transportation, and helped strengthen the coalition of national and local organizations across the country seeking to improve federal transportation policy. Before taking this role, he worked as a Policy and Outreach Associate at Transportation for America.

Nick Wurst is a trainman based in Massachusetts. Nick started working for the railroad in 2019 as an intermodal worker and member of the Transportation Communication Union (TCU/IAM). Nick serves as the General Secretary for Railroad Workers United. He currently works as a freight conductor and locomotive engineer and is a member of SMART-TD.

Public Rail Now Partners

The Public Rail Now partners currently include labor, environmental, and social justice organizations, as well as individuals who understand the importance of modern rail transportation.

Organizations