Two Quad Cities organizations tasked with advancing and promoting quality trade union construction across the region each have hired a new executive director after two retirements.
Brian Atkins and Lucie VanHecke, respectively, are now leading the Tri-City Building and Construction Trades Council and the Illowa Construction Labor and Management Council.
The associations jointly announced the new hires in a news release Wednesday, May 14.
Mr. Atkins assumed the helm of Tri-City Building and Construction following the retirement of its former Executive Director Jerry Lack in December.
A second-generation ironworker and former business manager for Ironworkers Local 111, Mr. Atkins has been a union ironworker for 28 years. He was elected by Local 111 in 2013 and served in that role until July 2023. He is a former member of the Illowa’s board of directors and a graduate of Davenport West High School.
His role at the Tri-City council will be to advocate for skilled tradespeople providing safe and quality work on local construction products.
Ms. VanHecke assumed the new executive director of Illowa Construction Labor and Management Council on April 14. She replaced Craig DeVrieze who retired from the council.
A Moline native and graduate of Augustana College and United Township High School, Ms. VanHecke’s career has been dedicated to public service. Most recently, Ms. VanHecke served as project administrator for MetroLINK (from 2023-April 2025) and previously as district director (2021-2023) to former Quad Cities Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. She worked with Ms. Bustos, formerly of Moline, for nearly a decade in all.
Ms. VanHecke currently serves on the boards of the Friends of Moline Parks and Recreation Foundation, SAL Family and Community Services, and the City of Moline Public Arts Commission. She was honored in 2024 as one of the Quad Cities’ Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty nominees.
According to the release, Ms. VanHecke’s oversight of MetroLINK’s capital projects included three IMPACT Construction Agreement projects. In her new role she will work to promote the use of IMPACT agreements by local builders. IMPACT agreements provide a collaborative process between 17 trade locals and more than 400 area union contractors to ensure projects are built efficiently, safely and with trademark union quality.
In the release, the two councils also saluted the work of Mr. Atkins and Ms. VanHecke’s predecessors. Mr. Lack was the executive director for Tri-City Building and Construction Trades Council from 2018 through 2024 after having served in the same capacity at the Illowa Council from 2007 to 2018.
His previous experience included serving as economic development director and district director for former Congressman Lane Evans. Mr. Lack is a graduate of Black Hawk College and received his bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University and a master’s degree in public administration from Drake University.
Mr. DeVrieze served as Illowa council’s executive director from July 2022 through April 2025. He previously was St. Ambrose University’s director of communications, public relations, and editorial projects from 2011-2022. He also spent 31 years prior working as a sports writer and news reporter for the Quad City Times and Dispatch/Argus.
Now also a freelance author, Mr. DeVrieze wrote these area history books: “Magic Happened: Celebrating 50 Years of the John Deere Classic,” “Davenport Country Club: A Century on the Bluff” and “Short Hills: A Long History.” He is a graduate of United Township, Black Hawk College, Southern Illinois University, and the St. Ambrose University Master of Organizational Leadership program.
The Tri-City council is an association of the affiliated union crafts that represent skilled construction trades across the Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa region. Its members include representatives from these trades: Boilermakers, Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers, Carpenters, Electricians, Elevator Constructors, Glaziers, Heat & Frost Insulators, Iron Workers, Millwrights, Operating Engineers, Operative Plasters and Cement Finishers, Painters, Plumbers and Pipefitters, Roofers, Sheet Metal Workers, Sprinklerfitters and Teamsters.
The Illowa council was formed in 1985 to bring union trades and management representatives together to enhance labor and management collaboration in the construction industry. Covering a seven-county area of the bistate, its primary mission is to promote the IMPACT project labor agreement and help facilitate a seamless, client-friendly collaborative process between builders, contractors, and trade union laborers. Since its founding, nearly 600 IMPACT project labor agreements have helped build the Quad Cities community.
