George Sims
Week of April 23, 2001

George Joseph "Joe" Sims was born in Brookline, Mass., on September 20, 1929. His family moved to Malden and then Roxbury before settling in Natick when Joe was 15 years old.

As a child, Joe aspired to be an airplane mechanic. Boston Trade School was the only public high school in the country that offered such training. Although he lived in Natick, the Boston Public Schools allowed Joe to attend Boston Trade, provided that he maintained a high grade point average and could furnish his own transportation. The commute was a challenge. Getting home was particularly difficult. On many an evening, Joe found himself walking from the end of the MTA bus route, in Wellesley Hills, to his home in South Natick.

Sims played shortstop on the school's baseball team. He was contacted by a scout for the Boston Red Sox and was given a tryout with the club at Fenway Park. He admits that he was having a "lucky game" the day the scout spotted him, so he wasn't surprised that he didn't pass muster when he had his chance with the professional team. A well rounded athlete, Sims also quarterbacked Boston Trade's football team through its last championship season, in 1946.

On weekends, Sims worked servicing airplanes at area naval bases, learning from seasoned military mechanics. His summers were spent working as a tree climber for Boston-area arborists New England Forestry Company and Davey Tree Company.

He graduated from Boston Trade School in 1946.

Sims' training was in motor-driven aviation equipment, but the industry was rapidly moving to jet technology. When Sims got married in 1947, he remembers, he "needed to earn a living right away." So he set aside his desire to be an aviation mechanic and began working full-time, climbing trees for New England Forestry. In 1948, Sims became the caretaker of the Hunnewell estate, across Lake Waban from Wellesley College.

He pruned the topiary trees in the estate's Italian garden using an elaborate system of ladders and ropes, from which he was suspended above and through the trees - without actually touching them except with his pruning tools. Falls from the 40-foot ladders into Lake Waban were not rare among the Hunnewell tree workers.

In 1951, Sims left his post at the Hunnewell estate and was hired by the Wellesley College Grounds Department as a tree climber. Wellesley's crew of four tree men cared for all of the trees on campus, devoting particular attention to the maintenance of the College's apple orchard, which was located behind today's faculty housing "A-frames" on Service Drive. The freshly picked fruit produced in the orchard was served to students in the College dining halls.

In 1953, Sims transferred to a position maintaining the College's golf course, where he stayed until 1954. He then left Wellesley College to take advantage of an opportunity to work as a lubrication mechanic for the construction crew that was working on what is now the Massachusetts Turnpike.

In 1956, he left the Turnpike project and worked for a year as the caretaker for the 300-acre J.G. Bradley estate in Needham. In 1957, Sims returned to Wellesley College. Following a short stint in the Plumbing Shop, he accepted a helper's job in the Sheet Metal/Roofing Shop. Concurrently, he attended Newton Trade School two nights per week, studying the craft of sheet-metal fabrication, and worked three nights per week pumping gasoline. His Wellesley College salary of $50 per week was insufficient to support a family.

Sims worked his way up from the helper position to B mechanic, then A mechanic, and finally, in 1968, he became the head of the Sheet Metal/Roofing Shop, a position he held until his retirement in 1991.

Sims was the assistant business agent of the Independent Maintenance and Service Employees' Union from 1960 through 1966. From 1966 through 1970 he served as the union's business agent. From 1970 through 1972 he served as a union trustee. In 1976, he became the vice president of the union, and when the president resigned in 1977, Sims was appointed as president. He led the union until 1979. In 1980 Sims assumed the role of business agent when the sitting business agent became ill, and he maintained that role through 1982. He took labor-relations courses offered by the Labor Guild of Boston from 1967 through 1969.

Sims recalls conversations with the union's first business agent, Fred Pillion, a carpenter, and its first president, John Daly, a plumber. The union was formed in response to what its founders described as "random firings for unjust reasons, with cruel methods." The union began in 1942 as a branch of the AFL/CIO and became independent in 1946. Over the years, Sims remembers, the union has enjoyed strong support from the student body. Until 1974, the College assigned gender-based classifications to custodial positions. Females were "matrons," and males were "custodians." Although their job descriptions were identical, matrons were paid less than custodians. Thanks in large part to strident student opposition to that practice, the College accepted the union's position, and in 1974, Wellesley College implemented a single, non-gender-based, union pay scale.

Today, Joe Sims is a semiretired roofing consultant and an avid and accomplished golfer. He has been the senior golf champion at the North Conway Country Club from 1995 through 2000. He lives in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Written by Mur Wolf