(This is the fourth in a series to introduce members to their International headquarters staff)

Cathie Duthie of the membership records department at GCIU International headquarters in Washington, D.C., is an accomplished musician in her free time, playing the accordion, the violin, and the hard-to-master bagpipes. Proud of her Scottish heritage, Cathie practices playing the bagpipes for a special event.

Judging by her winning smile while working at her computer, Cathie Duthie enjoys her job at GCIU International headquarters. She has 32 years of experience working for the GCIU and predecessor unions.

Her employment dates back to 1969 when she began her career at what was then the Lithographers and Photoengravers International Union, then headquartered in New York City. She liked the job enough to leave her home in the "Big Apple" to relocate to the nation's capital, then called a "sleepy southern town" when headquarters was moved in May 1971 . . . She has worked for the union ever since.

Cathie began as a keypunch operator in the data processing department and transferred to membership records in the early 1980s. Since then she deals mostly with local union officials to keep records up to date.

She assists locals with keeping track of their per capita payments after membership fluctuations and works to keep all membership records current in the computer files.

She also takes charge of the mail room at times when Joseph "J.R." Rivera is not in the office and helps out in other departments when needed.

Cathie's main hobby is music. She is a multi-talented performer, playing the accordion, the violin, and the difficult-to-learn bagpipes over the years.

When she was a girl in Brooklyn, New York, she studied the accordion and played with a local band that was good enough to compete on the popular Ted Mack's Amateur Hour television show, a nationally televised talent hunt.

After the accordion, she went on to learn the violin. While she was going through Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, Cathie studied and played the violin for four years with her high school's orchestra.

But her most ambitious musical undertaking was to learn to play the bagpipes, an instrument that connects back to her Scottish heritage. Her father was born in Scotland and, after a first visit to Scotland when she was 10 years old, she decided she wanted to play the bagpipes. She used a set of pipes that belonged to her grandfather to learn to play.

Her teacher, a family friend, was one of the best in this country, the piper who played at the funeral of President John F. Kennedy and was pipe major of the now defunct U.S. Air Force Pipe Band.

Since learning the difficult-to-master instrument that Scots themselves admit takes "seven years and seven generations" to learn, Cathie has kept up with her love of music and her heritage by playing with the Alexandria (Va.) Pipe Band, one of America's better bagpipe units. The City of Alexandria, outside Washington, D.C., was founded in the mid-1700s by Scottish settlers and is proud of its connection to Scotland.

The band competes in Scottish games music competitions and has won several awards. Cathie also has won several medals for individual bagpiping competitions she has won.

Cathie Duthie's second hobby is travel. "My travels have taken me to many foreign and exotic places in the U.S.A., Canada, and Europe," she remembers fondly. Because of the family connections, she has visited Scotland about half a dozen times, including her first trip when she was 10.

She remembers a trip last year during which she attended a family reunion outside London, England. She was able to connect with more than 60 relatives at the family gathering.

During the 2000 visit to the British Isles, she toured England and then journeyed north into Scotland to visit her father's birthplace in Frasierburgh, a fishing village on the North Sea north of Aberdeen. She then drove through the beautiful Scottish Highlands and toured all over Scotland.

A highlight of her Scotland visit was the chance to visit relatives in remote areas who had been unable to attend the family reunion in England.

Cathie enjoys her job at GCIU headquarters and her duties of helping locals keep their membership records straight. She also performs a vital function to ensure that local union and International headquarters have records that agree.

"I find my job to be very satisfying," she said. "And it is nice to work in a place where the people are always friendly and willing to help one another out whenever needed."