Background

Jerry Jones was born in Illinois, and then moved along with his family following friends to Paso Robles in 1944. His mother had been ill, they found the weather quite favorable for her in the North County.

Jerry grew up in the Paso area. His father was a mechanic and fabricator allowing him the opportunity of following dad around, always being the gopher and "the afternoon clean-up kid" after school. While working with his father, he developed a keen interest in cars (and anything with an engine). His passion for fast vehicles grew the older he got. It didn't hurt that, as a teenager, he worked at an auto parts house. He always had hot rods, was a wanna-be racer, a motorcycles hill climber and wanted to be involved with anything that would go fast and burn rubber. In fact, the second car that he owned was a Kenny Van Blargen built model A coupe. Nearly everyone in Paso, in those days, was part of one very close knit car family.

Jerry has two grown daughters, one lives in Colorado. The other, along with her husband live in SLO, and own and operate THE RAVINE water park in Paso Robles. He also has a stepson whom is an Insurance agent in Pasadena and a stepdaughter married to an attorney (sorry) living in Sacramento, 7 grandchildren ages from seven to 25.

Jerry previously served as in-house coordinator for Estrella Warbirds Museum. As to his interest in the Museum, Jerry says, "I guess you can refer to the first paragraph as well, as I have never met such a wide variety of interesting people with amazing stories that I can never tire of hearing them while at Estrella Warbird Museum".

Jerry's professional background includes leadership positions with the Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce, served as parts manager, sales manager, then general manager of Wallace GMC/Wallace Machinery Company; Safety Director for San Luis Tank and Piping; Northwest Safety Supervisor, then Equipment Manager followed by Asset Manager for Colt Construction Company out of Bellingham, Washington; before retiring from Central Coast Gases in February of 2012.

Just in case you get the hankering, be it known that Jerry has previous training and certification as a DOT Drug Awareness Evaluator, and quite a slew of certifications from OSHA and NFPA. He sure kept all the volunteers at the museum on their toes!