Howell Day Museum
Besides model trains, John is into planes in a big way...a 1:1 way. After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1976, he went into pilot training and spent over nine years flying KC-135's and T-43's. He left the Air Force in 1985 to join Delta Air Lines. He retired in 2018 after flying for Delta for over 32 years finishing his career as a B-737 Captain with over 22,000 hours of flying time.
John joined the NMRA in 1999, and quickly became the Good & Welfare Chair for the Southeast Region and the Piedmont Division. He was appointed National Scout Coordinator in the early 2000's a position he held for nearly 20 years. He was elected SER Secretary in 2004, a position he held for four years. In 2008 he was appointed Assistant NMRA Secretary, and took over the Secretary position in 2012 when the sitting NMRA Secretary retired. In 2018, John was elected Vice President Administration after serving as Secretary for 6 years.
In 2021, he was appointed Howell Day Museum Department Manager. His primary responsibility is overseeing "The Magic of Scale Model Railroading Gallery" which is currently on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, CA. He also oversees the NMRA Collection which are items that have been donated to the NMRA for future display but are currently stored at NMRA Headquarters in Soddy Daisy, TN.
Since retiring, John has been working on a medium size layout in the basement of his house. Having survived the Delta Airlines/Pan Am World Airways acquisition in 1991, he has chosen to model Pan Am Railways which was initially Guilford Transportation Industries which included the remains of the Boston & Maine Railroad and the Maine Central Railroad. In 1998, Guilford bought the rights to the name, colors, and logo of Pan Am World Airways. In 2006, Guilford changed its name to Pan Am Railways. In 2020, CSX announced they had reached an agreement to purchase Pan Am Railways and it is now operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of CSX. John is modelling the southern Maine and New Hampshire portion of the railroad much of which was abandoned in the early 1980's. The timeframe he is modelling is during the transition period from Pan Am to CSX which allows him to run locomotives painted for Guilford, Pan Am railways, and CSX.