West Orange High School in 1968. He began college as a business major at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, but ultimately graduated in 1971 with a BA in education and urban planning. Stern began his career as a welfare caseworker and member of the SEIU Local 668 in 1973, eventually being elected president in 1977 of his Pennsylvania local. In 1980, he was elected to SEIU’s International Executive Board, as the youngest member in its history, and in 1984 the union's then-president John Sweeney put him in charge of SEIU’s organizing efforts. SEIU President In 1996, Stern was elected to the presidency of the union in a hotly contested election. He led a major restructuring of the union to “grow stronger not smaller” spending nearly 50% of its resources on organizing. In 1999 SEIU won the largest union election since 1935 for 74,000 LA home care workers.IN BIGGEST DRIVE SINCE 1937, UNION GAINS A VICTORY By 2000 SEIU had become the largest union in the AFL-CIO, and the fastest growing union in the world. It launched major North American campaigns “Justice for Janitors”,Historic Justice for Janitors campaign inspires a new generation “Stand for Security,” “There’s No Place Like Home” (home care workers), as well as child care, Southern, hospital and nursing home workers, and set up offices around the world to lead transnational global accountability efforts for Sodexo, Securitas, and ISS. As a result of these efforts, SEIU grew 1,200,000 members under his leadership. Stern was both a progressive and practical labor leader as Al Hunt profiled in his WSJ column, "He (Stern) is a powerhouse in the labor movement and American politics, and one of a new breed of labor leaders determined to energize the movement." The Washington Business Journal profile was headlined "Militant but pragmatic labor leader wants a vibrant D.C." After launching a national debate aimed at uniting the nine out of ten American workers who have no organization at work, SEIU, along with the Teamsters, announced on July 25, 2005 that they were disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO. Stern led SEIU out of the AFL-CIO and founded Change to Win, a six-million-member federation of seven major unions "dedicated to giving workers a voice at their jobs." Political Influence During the years of Stern's leadership, the SEIU became the largest political action committee in the United States, and funneled vast amounts of financing to the