Mr. Wilbert Rowell

General Vice President, International Longshoremen’s Association
Assistant Secretary-Treasurer, South Atlantic & Gulf Coast District, ILA, AFL-CIO

Wilbert Rowell was unanimously re-elected to a second four-year term as General Vice President of the International Longshoremen’s Association at the union’s 55th Quadrennial Convention in July 2019, a position he was first elected to in 2015.

A native and lifelong resident of Wilmington, North Carolina, Rowell is a veteran of more than 50 years working on the waterfront, having been employed on the Wilmington, North Carolina docks in 1967 as longshoreman, deck crane operator, bulldozer and fork-lift operator and maintenance welder. He became a licensed container crane operator, tractor-trailer operator and container handler in 1976, the year he joined ILA Local 1426.

Four years later in 1980, Rowell was elected delegate to attend his first convention of the ILA’s South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District. Throughout the 1980s, Rowell served on various ILA Wage Scale committees. In May 1994, he was elected to the Executive Board of Local 1426 and served as Chairman of Local 1426 Executive Board. In October of the same year, Rowell was elected President of ILA Local 1426 and would serve three consecutive terms until December 2003.

Wilbert Rowell was elected Assistant Secretary-Treasurer of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District in July 2002 and re-elected to that position in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. He was elected President of the Southeastern Dock and Marine Council in 2005, and was also appointed as Co-Chair of the Local Industry Grievance Committee (LIGCO) for South Atlantic ports.

At the ILA’s 52nd Quadrennial Convention in 2007, Rowell was elected Vice President and Executive Board member. At the International level, Rowell was appointed as a trustee on the CR-5 Container Freight Station Funded, established under the ILA-United States Maritime Alliance Master Contract.

ILA President Harold J. Daggett called upon Wilbert Rowell to serve as Trustee for ILA Local 333 in Baltimore in December 2014.

Wilbert Rowell is married to Helenda Simpson Rowell. He has five children and five grandchildren. Rowell’s interests include fishing and competitive card playing and checkers.