Unions and the Outdoors Run In His Blood

Unions and the Outdoors Run In His Blood

By PJ DelHomme

For Jacob Evenson, boilermakers, shooting, volunteering, and hunting run in his blood.

Jacob Evenson grew up around boilermakers and the outdoors. His grandfather started his career welding in the Portland shipyards in the 1940s during World War II, then moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1962 to work on the Titan II missile silos. Jacob’s dad joined the Boilermakers Local 627 Apprenticeship Program in 1977 and graduated in 1981. He worked in copper mines, power plants, and refineries. In 2005, Jacob started the Boilermakers National Apprenticeship Program and graduated in 2007. Today, he’s the business manager of Boilermakers Local 627 and the financial secretary for the Arizona State Building and Construction Trades Council.

Like his dad, Jacob grew up with a shotgun in his hand. And like his dad, Jacob is deeply involved with the USA’s shooting program, getting his union brothers and sisters from the trades on the shooting line in Phoenix.

“Because this is Arizona, we’ve got a lot of quail hunters who are good at wing shooting,” Jacob says. “When we host a shooting event with USA, it gets pretty competitive.”

Jacob’s dad Kyle and his late uncle, Gary Evenson, started going to the USA shooting events in Kansas City from the very beginning. Kyle was the executive director of construction at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers in Kansas City and attended the annual shoot to help raise money.

“Every year, you get to see your buddies again,” Kyle says. “You get to affirm friendships, and it was fun to shoot with my son.”

Kyle retired in 2017 and doesn’t shoot in Kansas City anymore. Instead, he shoots closer to home in Phoenix, where Jacob has been working to steadily grow the Arizona event into one of the fastest-growing shoots on the USA tour, according to Chris Piltz, events manager for the USA. In fact, in the last three years, the Arizona shoot has increased attendance by 38 percent and gross revenue by 50 percent.

Over the years, Piltz met all three generations of the Evenson family, including the uncles. He says that Jacob has worked to get other trades to the shoots and helped make the event a success. “Guys like Jacob take pride in seeing the event grow,” he says.

While shooting helps raise money to support the USA’s mission, Jacob is also working with local officials to get a work project off the ground to help improve a campground at a lake where Local 627 has had a yearly picnic for the last six years.

“Hopefully, we can get the trades together and put some boots on the ground to knock this project out,” he says.

There’s no doubt that Jacob has a lot on his plate, especially with a three-year-old son and six-year-old daughter at home. Maybe all the extra volunteer work with the USA helped him build some karma last year because he finally drew an Arizona elk tag after putting in for 11 years.

He (and his dad) were all in for a muzzleloader elk hunt during the rut. As Jacob tells it, Kyle went with some buddies to spot for elk on a knob. Jacob went in the opposite direction. At first light, he heard bugles to the east and west. Then he heard a shot to the west, along with a whoop. Jacob turned his attention east, where a 6×7 bull was coming in fast to his cow calls.

“I saw it before anyone else,” Kyle says with a laugh.

Jacob killed that bull at just 43 yards, but he admits there’s a problem. Even as a European mount, the antlers barely fit in the house.

If you’d like to join Jacob, Kyle, and other union shooters, check out the 2025 Arizona BCTC Sporting Clays Shoot on March 8 at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix, or find a USA event near you.