• Posted: November 19, 2021

Vince Kelley’s family has been part of the union since the 1950s. Starting as a “bungalow buster” electrician, Vince’s dad founded M.T. Kelley Electric in 1994. On Friday, November 19th, M.T. Kelley Electric has the honor of helping to light the City of Chicago’s 108^th annual Christmas Tree in Millennium Park. The expert electricians from M.T. Kelley have been on the scene downtown spreading holiday cheer by planning and prepping for the tree lighting of the main tree and the nearly five dozen trees situated along Michigan Avenue, to spread holiday cheer to Chicago.

“We’re really excited to not only be doing the main tree, but the rest of the lighting around Millennium Park,” said Vince Kelley. “To be able to give families a bright spot and hope that times are going to start to get better, that’s really important to us and one of the reasons we wanted to be involved.”

A team of six electricians has been working 10-hour days on-site with five lifts to finish the job in time for today’s lighting ceremony. The ceremony is open to the public after being held virtually last year. The decorated trees will include more than 1,000 strands of lights, which comes out to 53,500 individual lights on the tree and 25,750 feet of lighting. That’s 4.8 miles on the main tree! On the additional trees, a total of 1,160 strands will be strung, for another 29,000 feet.

“When we are finished, we’ll have put up approximately 10 and-a-half miles of lighting,” said Kelley.

The Millennium Park tree includes 575 strands of multicolored lights going up and down and woven in the tree. In addition, there are 75 strands of pink lights, wrapped and tied together. The last thing to go on will be 375 strands of the larger C7-type lights on the outside of the tree.

“The biggest thing is not only are we doing the main tree, but we have 58 additional trees along Michigan Avenue and the ice rink to light,” Kelley explained. “We’ll be working up until the final hour on Friday.”

Each tree on Michigan Avenue is getting 20 sets of warm white mini-LED Christmas lights. Electricians are wrapping the large branches in Christmas lights too.

Today, as Principal of the firm his dad founded, Vince thinks back to his family’s six decades of union membership and knows they would be proud. It’s an honor to help with this project, said Kelley.

He remembers hearing stories of his great grandmother who worked the switchboard at the Insurance Trustees, and as the secretary at the Union Hall. He helped his dad, Thomas Kelley, with the computer and invoicing when he started the business in 1994 when Vince was in high school.

“And then I went to college and decided I did not want to get a job sitting in a cubicle for the rest of my life,” he said. “I told him I wanted to come work with him, joined the union in 2004 and I’ve been working with the company ever since.”

This year’s Tree Lighting Ceremony is presented by Powering Chicago with leadership support from the Millennium Park Foundation. “The tree lighting ceremony is the result of planning and hard work and wouldn’t be possible without the expertise of the union labor from M.T. Kelley,” said Elbert Walters III, Executive Director, Powering Chicago. “Following a year where many were unable to see the tree, Powering Chicago, the Electrical Contractors’ Association and IBEW Local 134 are looking forward to welcoming Chicagoans back for an in-person viewing.”

For more information about the 2021 Tree Lighting Ceremony, visit https://poweringchicago.com/mt-kelley-city-of-chicago-christmas-tree-2021/