My term as President of the Southeastern Region began in the Fall of 2021. Prior leadership experience in the NMRA began in 2016 when I was appointed Superintendent of what is now the Cherokee Division. I was the Convention Chairman for the 2019 SER Annual Convention held in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 2019 I was elected as Director of the SER. In 2018 I was awarded the SER President’s Award for the progress the Cherokee Division has achieved in promoting our hobby in the Southeastern Region. In 2020 I received the SER’s Dave Muller Award for Individual Achievements and Volunteerism. I have earned four NMRA Achievement Awards: Association Official, Association Volunteer, Author and Chief Dispatcher.

 

My model railroading Interests include being a member of the Operations Special Interest Group (OPSIG), Tennessee Valley Model Railroad, Inc., the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, Southern Railway Historical Association and the L&N Historical Society. My own HO scale Southern Railway – Cherokee Division is a double-deck layout designed for operations. My 230’ mainline layout is set in the late 1970’s and trains run from Harriman, TN to Decatur, AL with enough switching opportunities to keep crews busy during an operating session.

 

I especially enjoy the operations aspect of model railroading and have been fortunate to operate on a lot of outstanding layouts in and around the SER. The best thing about membership in the NMRA is all the friendships we make at conventions, train shows, model railroad clubs, and Division meetings. Here in the SER, we are fortunate to have outstanding modelers that have created beautiful layouts, structures and model trains in a variety of scales. I plan to continue working with members in our Region as we share our love of trains and to help future leaders in our great hobby.

 

 

 

I began my interest in model railroading back in the early 60’s with a Lionel 027 layout that occupied most of my parents’ garage. Fast forward several decades later and after having moved to Tennessee from California, I’m in the process of constructing my fifth, a full-basement-sized HO scale model railroad of the Fungus and Mungus Railroad set in 1906 in the Colorado high-country. I’ve just completed the trackwork for this version 5.0, having laid 171 pcs of flextrack.

 

Before moving from California, I was active in the Sierra Division of the PCR, serving as its treasurer. Just prior to leaving, I was the sole nominee for Superintendent and Division Director to the PCR. I also served as the 2023 Pacific Coast Region Convention chair. I was an active member of the Sacramento Model Railroad Historical Society and served as its treasurer for 3 years.

 

Over the past two decades I have served as treasurer of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Sacramento, CFO of the Kiwanis Foundation of Greater Sacramento, treasurer of the Natomas Chamber of Commerce, treasurer of the Institute for Supply Management Sacramento Valley Chapter, and treasurer and later president of the Professional Photographers of Sacramento Valley.

 

I’ve been a member of the NMRA since 2016 (this time around) and am active in the Smokey Mountain Division where I host the bi-monthly Zoom show and share sessions. I have also just agreed to serve as the 2025 Convention Chair.

 

I look forward to continuing to serve as the Southeastern Region Treasurer.

 

 

 

Thank you for considering me to be a representative at large for the Southeastern Region of the NMRA. My quick bio is that I have a number of letters after my name. The M.D. is related to my 25+ years as an Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon. The M.S. refers to a computer science degree. From the former I have a number of neat tools to work on my layout. Secondary to the later I manage two NMRA Division’s web sites and have a number of DCC and LCC project underway.

 

Like many of us, my first exposure to model railroading was with a Lionel train set. In my case it was two, a cousin’s old pre-war tinplate and a Super-O set. I liked and still like my Lionel trains, but they take up a lot of room. A friend had an H.O. set and even at a young age I could see the operational possibilities that I just didn’t have the space for with my Lionel layout.

 

I wanted an H.O. set, but mom got me an Atlas N-scale set. By the time I was in my twenties that had grown into a 4 by 10 twice around eastern coal road. When my sons came onto the screen, Lionel and LGB trains occupied my railroad time. Today I’m working on my two deck Ann Arbor Railroad, and a couple of T-Trak modules.

 

While I’ve been a member of the NMRA since the 1970’s and attended my first National Convention then, I was more of a lone wolf secondary to my schedule. With the kids grown and retiring from surgery I have more time, and I became active in my local Division. I made a lot of new friends and learned a thing or two. When I moved to South Carolina, there was no active division for my area. A few of us got together at the SER meeting in Greenville and got the Atlantic Division up and operational.

 

Besides being active in the local division, I am a member of several clubs and model railroad organizations. I do believe that the backbone of the NMRA are the local organizations. Zoom has allowed that to be expanded to larger areas, but again the real strength is the local organization. It is my desire to provide support to the Divisions and other local model railroad organizations to help grow the membership of the region and the NMRA.

 

I thank you very much for your support.

 

 

 

Hi, My Name, is Gary Fish. I am a model railroader.

I have worn many hats as a professional volunteer for the Piedmont division of the NMRA. I have attended all events that the Piedmont division participated in to include the following.

 

For about the last 6 or 7 years I have been the Food and Beverage director for the division.

 

The last 2 years I was the Membership chair for the Piedmont and went at it with my usual flair and even with the shutdown that was being forced on us, still managed to keep the shows we participated in staffed. In order to keep division viable and alive I spent lots of time on the phone, texts and emails to keep our members participating. I also informed a lot of our older members how to use the new online technology to stay connected to the division and to the world. I sure didn’t want these brothers and sisters lost home alone.

 

I staffed and assisted at all of our events including Golden spike train show, (where I also worked as a Liaison for the division in talking with all vendors to share and convince them to participate in our show) Trains Trains Trains kids event, Tellus Museum kids event, and most importantly staffed and handled all the volunteers and participated for the whole weekend at our Piedmont division train show at the Clarence Brown Convention Center.

 

I heard there was a need for folks to be on the SER board and thought my energy and love for trains as well as a desire to volunteer and serve, would be a great match for my next challenge. I really enjoyed last year’s convention in Greenville and am really looking forward to this year’s event in Cartersville. I am also now planning a trip to Dallas for the National convention.

 

As a career, I am a Chiropractor and I practice In Roswell Georgia, a Suburb of Atlanta. This June I will be celebrating my 40th year in practice.

 

I have been in love with model trains since I was a baby in the Bronx, NY. My father’s train board was hung on the wall of my brother and my bedroom. One of my treasures today are the trains that I have from my dad.

 

I would spend a lot of my spare time building train model’s, repairing train motors, and reading about trains and how their history is American history. I was a lone wolf mainly because I never knew there was a group that met regularly of model railroaders.

 

That all changed when I had a patient join our practice, who was the wife of a current practice member. She was a senior Olympian and I asked him if he would go to her swim meets.

 

He informed me of an agreement they had. She didn’t ask him to go to her swim meets and he didn’t ask her to go to his train groups/events. My ears perked up. What train Groups? I had never heard of one before. He told me about his groups, and I joined him the following Wednesday Morning as a guest of the Jasper Roundhouse train Club. I was in heaven! Next a group of the guys from the Jasper were going to a monthly meeting of the Piedmont division of the NMRA. This took place at the previous meeting place in Tucker Georgia. I would often drive up to 90 minutes in traffic to get there.

 

It was very good timing since the Piedmont was the sponsor of the National Train Show the next year.

Currently I have a home layout that is 8 x 16 2 levels with a 5 track staging Yard under the stairs next door. I also have a 4 x 6 test track layout next to my desk that has HO, N and Tri rail for running the trains that I repair

 

I look forward to this next challenge in helping grow model railroading in the SER and ask for your support.

 

 

 

My appreciation of railroads came from my grandfather, who was a brakeman for the Grand Trunk

Western Railroad near Port Huron, MI. My first trainset was a bicentennial one for Christmas that I

promptly setup on the ping pong table. Then I started reading model railroading magazines and found John Armstrong’s design book, which opened my eyes to what is possible.

 

After moving to Kansas City, I joined NMRA in 2001 to find other model railroaders and to learn more. A regular operating group invited me to join and I also began participating in regional and national NMRA conventions. After moving to Chattanooga in 2010, I reached out through NMRA to find other model railroaders. I really enjoy layout design, prototype research, and operations, and am a regular operator for several layouts in Tennessee and Atlanta.

 

I am also a member of Chattanooga Modular Modelers, Tennessee Valley Model Railroaders Inc (new layout under construction at the TVRM), and NMRA-OpSIG (of course!). After serving on the CherokeeDivision Board for several years, I was elected Asst Superintendent in 2021 and Superintendent in 2023.

 

I was elected SER Director in 2020 and have worked on several tasks and committees. I also served onthe 2019 SER Convention Committee and planned/executed several activities for that very successful convention.

 

I have enjoyed helping model railroad friends design extensions of their railroads. In my spare time I am building an HO representation of mid-1990’s BN in the Springfield MO area on the old Frisco, called the BN Monett Sub. My railroad is funded by full-time employment at TVA, where I oversee fire protection upgrades and testing for our fleet of coal/gas/hydro powerplants. Even now I still go out of my way for a little railfanning, which has been further enabled by access to TVA’s coal unit trains, switcher locomotives, and other rail deliveries (such as ammonia, pebble lime, and transformers). Family includes my musical wife of 32 years (Ronda) and our American Eskimo pup (Lily).

 

In this hobby I have enjoyed the comradery of the model railroad community, the creative variety of layout builders, and the challenge of moving model railroad traffic as the layout owner intended. As an engineer, I am always drawn to figuring out how something works and how can it be improved, whether it’s a widget or a process. I want to continue serving the SER and ask for your vote as Director.

 

 

 

My name is Patrick “Pat” Taylor. I am 73 years old, am a disabled veteran, been married for forty-six years to my wife Connie and have two adult children and six grandkids. I retired in 2009 from PLT & Associates as President and CEO which operated Pat Taylor Photography & Digital Imaging, To The Point Advertising and First Impressive Wear. FIW specializes in embroidering, silk screening, team uniforms and spirit wear for all our area schools. As a professional photographer I served the local schools for over thirty-two years.

 

I have been in model railroading for more than four decades and in the 1980s I operated a hobby shop in Eaton, Ohio.

 

Currently I am an active member with Miami Valley Modular Railway, centered in Dayton, Ohio for the past sixteen years. When working with them I took on the role of Marketing Director when Division 3 hosted their regional convention. In order to be a member with the MVMR you are required to be an NMRA member as they have 100% participation. I also built two modulars which have been featured at their exhibits and on local television stations. With them I have also attended five NMRA national conventions and at four of those events we displayed our massive modular setup.

 

I am also a member of the Crossville Model Railroad Club where I served as President for six years. I currently serve on the marketing committee and in that position, I am responsible for creating and designing all our promotional material and signage. I have helped organize all our Train Shows, Swap Meets and Educational Weekend programs. I served as Assistant Superintendent of Division 16 of the SER for four years.

 

I would be interested in a Directors position as I feel I could contribute to promoting the hobby and attracting younger members. Like most organizations these days, we all struggle with attracting members especially those from the young family demographic category. I feel we, the NMRA, make a concerted effort targeting those families and to draw them to model railroading. I believe we need to impress on the parents that this is a family-based hobby. Let them know how it promotes quality time with their children and gets kids off the electronics for a more hands-on experience. Conducting local “How to Build Your Railroad” with two or three weekend or evening classes, introducing them to the basics and even directing and assisting them in building a small layout. Anything we can do to set the Model Railroad “hook”.

 

I would appreciate your consideration for placement on the ballot for one of the Directors positions.