Ed Geppert, Jr., President

A veteran educator and union leader, Geppert served as Illinois Federation of Teachers Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2004, and as Secretary-Treasurer of the IFT from 1994 to 2001. Geppert served as IFT Assistant to the President for Organization, supervising the field staff of the union, for more than a decade before he became Secretary-Treasurer. Geppert was a member of the IFT Executive Board from 1975-77.

Geppert began his career in education as a social science teacher at Cahokia High School (1969-1977). He has been an IFT member since 1969 and is the former president of the Cahokia Commonfields Federation of Teachers, Local 1272. In 1977, he became a field service director for the IFT, organizing locals in southern Illinois and the Metro-East. He has also served as a delegate on the East St. Louis (now Southwestern Illinois) Central Labor Council and the Southwest Area Council, IFT/AFT/AFL-CIO. Geppert has also been a member of the Glassblowers and Bottlers Union and the United Rubber Workers.

Geppert appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2005 and served until 2007 as a member of the Illinois State Board of Education, where he chaired the Finance and Audit Committee.

For over a decade, Geppert served as member of the Southwest Illinois Leadership Council and the Southwest Illinois Labor-Management Committee.

His expertise in education and labor has been recognized by such groups as the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Learning Partnership and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

Geppert and his wife Martha, a retired English teacher, have three children and three grandchildren. They reside in Belleville, Illinois.

Stewart also serves as president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Local 1. She left the classroom after nearly three decades as a special education teacher when she was elected CTU president in 2004. She was re-elected CTU president in May, 2007, garnering 76 percent of the vote.

Stewart serves on the American Federation of Teachers’ Executive Council. Stewart was appointed by AFT President Ed McElroy to the national union’s Pre K-12 Program and Policy Council which advises and makes recommendations to the AFT Executive Council on elementary and secondary educational issues. Stewart is a member of the Illinois Federation of Teachers Executive Board and is also a vice president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, a central labor council representing over 300 unions in Chicago.

She began her teaching career at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville, Illinois where she spent a year teaching the deaf and hard of hearing. She spent the next 28 years with special education students in the Chicago Public Schools at Skinner, Spaulding and Kinzie Elementary Schools.

An active CTU member since 1976, Stewart was elected to the CTU House of Delegates in 1982. She has served on the CTU Executive Board as an Elementary Vice President and as a District Supervisor.

Her civic activities and achievements include past service on the Governors’ State University Counseling Advisory Board and as a church and community youth counselor. She was also a recipient of the Whirlwind Talented Teacher Award for Leadership.