Born to Be of Service

Though retired, the 2008 Peter J. Grandolfo Award winner continues to live the yellow school bus as mentor to the state of Montana

By Ryan Gray

Jack Welsh knew something was up.

I-State Truck in Billings, Mont., for which Welsh works part-time as a school bus delivery driver, sent him to Reno, Nev., in late July to attend the 15th STN EXPO as a finalist for the Peter J. Memorial Award of Excellence recognizing a school bus professional who has lived life as a child safety advocate. He thought it strange the company would spendmoney to send him for five days when it didn’t even know for sure if he’d win.

He’d also never met Grandolfo, who passed away suddenly on Jan. 22, 2006 from complications of hip surgery. “I wish I could have,” said Welsh. “We had the same ideas.”

There was an opportunity at the 1993 Montana Association for Pupil Transportation annual meeting, but a commitment to the Montana Army National Guard forced Welsh to miss the show, one of the only times he’s done so. Grandolfo attended that year as a presenter as the guest of David Huff, at the time Montana’s state director of pupil transportation and now the state director of traffic safety. Linda Grandolfo, Peter’s wife, traveled with him to Montana that year. As STN’s conference registration manager, she finally got the chance to meet Welsh when he showed up in Reno to pick up his EXPO attendee packet. She kept her best poker face.

“He introduced himself and said he was here as a finalist for my husband’s award. Then he whispered, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I think I might have won,’” Linda recalled. “He was so cute.”

Physically, Grandolfo and Welsh couldn’t have been more different. Welsh stands all of about 5-feet, 4-inches tall. But beyond that, if you knew Grandolfo and you know Welsh, the resemblance couldn’t be more similar. Seeing Welsh, it makes you wonder how such a large heart fits a man of such small physical stature.

He can’t weigh more than 120 pounds, and he must have to wear much more than his signature vest jacket to ward off the effects of those frigid Montana winters.

But the strength he exhibits is enough to pull an entire fleet of yellow school buses, reason enough for him being named the second annual winner of an award honoring the lifelong work of Grandolfo. Now In his late 70s, Welsh literally wears his own life’s work on his sleeve, or more accurately his lapel and name badge, such as during the 15th STN EXPO in Reno at the end of July. Like many of this industry’s professionals do, Welsh displays the various school transportation pins demonstrating his industry associations over the past 54 years, such as the Montana Association for Pupil Transportation and I-State Truck in Billings.

“No matter what, his kids are the most important thing on the face of this earth,” wrote Maxine Mougeot, Montana’s state director of pupil transportation, in her nomination of Jack. “As our mentor, Jack has been an extremely important part of the current work being done in Montana regarding standards, school bus driver training, school bus inspections, the MAPT conference and promoting good faith in the transportation community.”

In fact, Welsh is a founding member of MAPT, which began in the late 1970s. He had been president of the local school bus driver association, but it joined the state superintendents and school bus contractor associations to form a larger statewide coalition. He’s been named MAPT Transportation Person of the Year several times and has chaired the vendor show for more than two decades.

“He was the first on-site chairman for the MAPT Convention in 1987. He is still on the steering committee and is vendor co-chair,” said Betty Kunkel, executive secretary of MAPT who also nominated Welsh for the award. “Jack has many years of experience and knowledge to share. He helps deliver buses to the districts and also still drives for special events. He is a great guy to have around.”

Welsh got his start like so many in the school bus industry as a driver. The year was 1954 when he signed on as a substitute driver for his hometown Shepherd School District’s 1954 Ward on a GMC chassis. He also owned an automotive repair shop in town, but he soon became the yellow school bus guy. He remembers the other district bus, a 1941 International Harvester that had no heater.

“(The kids) had to get their blankets, their coats. We made them put their shoes on if it was cold,” he remembered.

“There were no rules back then, no technology,” added Mougeot. “And the roads were rough.”

In addition to running the school bus fleet, he became the high school shop teacher in 1969, and a year later he helped open the district’s vocational school, where he taught until 1981. All the while he managed the bus fleet, recruited and trained all drivers and still drove activity trips, the latter of which he keeps up to this day in addition to making vehicle deliveries for I-State and providing driver and maintenance training.

“The supervisor title probably arrived about 1981, but my feeling is that Jack was involved in making sure that kids got to and from school, and to activities from the start,” said David Peil, Shepherd’s current transportation director and himself a home-grown talent who remembers Welsh driving his high school baseball team to games. “Jack is just a helping type of guy, and does not have ‘no’ in his vocabulary.”

Welsh’s recollection is that he became transportation director at Shepherd in 1977. Regardless of when the actual title was bestowed upon him, he most likely had served as director for several years. It’s the role he was seemingly born to play. For three years in the late 1970s, the district turned its operations over to a private contractor. Welsh was hired to continue managing the operations, and the school soon bought back its buses and kept him in charge.

“I followed him around for the three months learning the job,” Peil recalls. “He impressed me with his helping and giving nature, his ability to remember people and what they have done in their lives, as well as his mellow nature. I have never seen Jack get angry. Any time I have had a question, problem or just needed help, he is there.”

“He is one of those kids who never quits learning. David, he is computer learner,” said Welsh of his protégé. “He’s part of the city. I would have to add everything up. David’s got it all in the computer system, the roster and all that now. He has done a fabulous job and stayed updated. He kept up the knowledge.”