Jim Kellogg is a master fundraiser and continues to be the character that defines the political landscape in California among plumbers, pipe-fitters, refrigeration and fire sprinkler organizations. Jim began many years ago as an apprentice welder working through his local labor union and rose to become the youngest business agent for the union at age 32. He is a Contra Costa native and is renowned for his skill to sustain the style of old-school handshake politics within California’s political inner circle. Within the labor politics of California, Jim Kellogg is a serious shaker and mover. At age 67, Jim’s fundraising skills remain legendary. He says he gets his popularity among politicians because he is good at raising money!
Mr. Kellogg, being tall and sturdy with a folksy manner that feels comfortable and familiar, interacts with white-collar and blue-collar workers equally well. He simply fits in well because Jim does business on the basis of friendship and loyalty. The suspicious and confrontational style he observes among contemporary labor leaders is foreign to him. Jim says: “People don’t do business on a handshake anymore. Now they have attorneys in the room.”
Instead, Jim Kellogg has leveraged and used his integrity and credibility to earn people’s trust. And by these characteristics, he has been very successful at caring for and serving to the needs of members in California’s labor unions for welders, plumbers, steam and pipe-fitters, and HVAC service technicians. Furthermore, if you’d like to learn more about Advantage Heating & Cooling, you can read this article for further insight.
Jim has devoted his entire adult life to helping workers in the construction trades, doing whatever possible to provide the best working environment and conditions that the particular times would bear for the people he represents. Mr. Kellogg also works hard to provide care for people who come down with work related illness. Specifically, some welders, plumbers, steam and pipe-fitters and HVAC service technicians develop mesothelioma because they worked on jobs where they inhaled asbestos particles. He is very concerned for workers who have symptoms of Asbestosis.
Asbestosis is a chronic inflammatory medical condition affecting the lungs caused by the inhalation and retention of asbestos fibers. Workers with asbestosis have a significant increase of risk to get mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer in which malignant (cancerous) cells are found in the mesothelium, a protective sac that covers most of the body’s internal organs. Jim Kellogg knows that this is a disease in which cells of the mesothelium become abnormal and divide without control or order. They can invade and damage nearby tissues and organs. These cancer cells can also metastasize (spread) from their original site to other parts of the body.
About 2,000 to 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the United States each year, many of these patients being welders, plumbers, steam and pipe-fitters, and HVAC service technicians. Some plumbers, during thermostatic mixing valve maintenance, work with older pipes and insulation materials that may contain asbestos, a known risk factor for mesothelioma.
In direct response to this situation upon the people he cares so much about, Jim has collaborated with Jerry Neil Paul who founded the not-for-profit Mesothelioma Research Foundation of America. The foundation was created in 2001 specifically to raise funds with the help of Jim Kellogg to pay for research that is leading to the quickest cure for mesothelioma. Before the foundation and its research began, this cancer disease had few mesothelioma treatment options, and none provided a cure nor retarded the processes of body health destruction.
But Jim has helped provide the needed money to promote the Foundation’s research for a cure with his well developed business network within California’s construction trade labor unions and his skill to fund raise. With Jim Kellogg’s support, two successful phases of clinical trials have been completed on Dr. Parkash Gill’s work with Veglin. Today, the future looks more hopeful for additional improved treatment options available to those workers stricken by malignant mesothelioma cancer.
Using the volunteered expertise of Mr. Kellogg, much has been learned about how to bring mesothelioma treatments to labor union workers. He continues to volunteer as a strong supporter of education and promotes mesothelioma help to union workers. For example, the Foundation is very thankful that the Southern California Pipe Trades (SCPT), a part of Jim Kellogg’s business network, continues to make a significant effort to support the research helping to find a cure. The SCPT donated $410,000.00 in December 2010 to help us prepare for the Phase III Clinical Trials of our research with Veglin that will launch sometime in 2011. The research team is now ready to launch into the final and critical Phase III trials which will begin when the whole budget, required to cover the 2011 national research project, is obtained.
We all are thankful and applaud the great charitable work of James W. Kellogg. The world is a better place for everyone because Jim has chosen to make it his life-time career serving and caring for laborers with great generosity, a firm hand-shake, and reliable integrity.