Eddie & Diana "Buckwheat & Mrs. Wheats" Raymond

Eddie Raymond is currently employed by Local 16 of the I.A.T.S.E. as an assistant to the Business Agent with a primary focus on training and organizing. He is also the Vice –President of Local 16 where he has been a member since 1975. Eddie is the current Chairman of PLASA North America and is the President of the San Mateo County Central Labor Council. Eddie sits on the IATSE ICAP committee (Career Advancement Program) and is a member of the ETCP Council.

Born in Berkeley, California and raised in Oakland, he has spent his entire life in the Bay Area. Eddie graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English Literature, and attended Graduate school in Education, earning his teaching credentials in English, Physical Education and Multiple Subject K-12. However, as teaching positions were on the decline in 1975, and feeling the need to pay rent and eat, he accepted employment at the American Conservatory Theater's scenic shop in San Francisco, having had some experience as a builder.

He spent the first 23 years of his professional life working seasonally for the American Conservatory Theater and for a variety of other theatrical and motion picture employers including many stints at Industrial Light and Magic as a construction coordinator and mechanical effects fabricator.

In the Field Eddie acted as ACT's Scene Shop Foreman/Technical Supervisor and, among other activities, as Construction Coordinator at ILM. In 1998 the Business Manager of Local 16, F.X. Crowley, asked Eddie to come work for the union in a variety of roles. Having served on the Apprentice Board since 1981, and the Executive Board since 1984, he was intimate with the workings of the Local, and saw this as an opportunity to give something back to the union that had served him so well for the previous 23 years. In his new role he continues to support efforts to improve the training programs of the local, and to help bring Local 16 up to date in many arenas. His role as tri-chair of the ETCP Rigging Certification Committee is a logical extension of these interests.

Eddie and his wife, Diana, have been married for 31 years, and have two daughters, Dawn and Kate, and two fabulous grandsons, Joseph and Gianni. He has lived in Pacifica, on the coast just south of San Francisco, since 1976. When not attending board meetings, working and otherwise being a responsible adult, Eddie enjoys performing as a singer/song-writer/guitar player at a variety of Bay Area clubs and coffee shops.