STEVE JONES
Steve is President of the Railroad & Locomotive Historical Society and is on the Board of the Union Station Foundation. These leadership credentials have given the restoration team of the Denver and Rio Grande steam engine #223 the inside track to financial and community support. Steve can’t claim any relatives who worked for a railroad and he has no working railroad experience. He fondly remembers his father taking him from the family farm in Pennsylvania to the amusement park to ride on a steam train. Even though it didn’t go very far, it burned a lasting memory in his mind. The thrill remains! Steve followed his wife when she came to Ogden to work, and with a couple of computer science degrees, began his own building automation systems company.
While getting acquainted with Ogden, Steve looked for volunteering opportunities and found the Golden Spike National Monument where Mike Burdett snared him into volunteering at the shop where #223 was being revitalized. This was a nice adjunct to Steve’s childhood participation in model railroading. When asked what his greatest “return on investment” is as a volunteer, Steve states, “Seeing new volunteers find a spot on the team. Some volunteers come with sophisticated shop talents while others just want to help. Everyone goes home after a Saturday of work, feeling good about their time in the shop”
Steve believes that what he is doing is preserving history which would have been lost without the work of the volunteers.
