My story goes back decades.  I became interested in fire apparatus at the age of 7 and it hasn’t stopped since.  I wanted to become a firefighter when I was old enough, but until then I just kept information and started taking photos of apparatus when I was 13.  I was able to join the local fire company, West Wyomissing in Berks County, PA when I turned 15.  Unfortunately I could not drive yet, and had to be chauffeured to calls by my parents, mainly my mother.  It was great being a Junior Firefighter and I met a great group of people.  But not only did I enjoy being a firefighter, I really loved the history of the local fire companies.  

   I remember one of my first parades was to the 100th Annual Pennsylvania State Fireman’s Convention right down the road in Reading.  Of course, my father took me into town, dropped me off and let me go for a few hours so that I could get some pictures of the rigs from all over the state.  The weather was not ideal and was overcast, but had a great time anyway.  This really peaked my interest in apparatus from all across the state.  At that time I started a list of all the apparatus I knew of and the companies they belonged.  This was way before computers and Excel spreadsheets.  I actually used a typewriter to compile my lists, but was a real pain when it came to updating information.

   Well, after getting my drivers license, I was off every weekend I could to photograph apparatus at various parades across the state.  I remember this one time, I went to the Western Pennsylvania Convention in Barnesboro.  The weather once again was not stellar, but the amount of apparatus that showed up from that end of the state was phenomenal.  I ended up sleeping overnight in my father’s pickup at the tent city.  From there I went up to Grove City for their parade the next day.  But from then on, it was almost every weekend to a different parade or going to fire companies to pose their apparatus.  The latter was much more rewarding and it was easier to get the information I needed that way.

     After getting out of the military in 1989, I worked various jobs and met my wife, Sharon.  She has been a godsend to me and very supportive of everything that I do, especially in the fire apparatus realm.  We got married in 1990 and I was still very active in the fire service.  My love for fire apparatus has never waned either.  We talked for years about starting a magazine on Pennsylvania fire apparatus, and finally in 1999 we came up with the idea of Keystone State Fire Apparatus News.

   Our first issue came out in the first quarter of 1999 and we had struggles.  Printing was expensive, postage, especially bulk mail, was a pain in the A$$, but we did the best we could.  We started off with a colored-background cover and black and white print and photos.  We eventually went to color which was tremendous.  That changed the total look of the magazine for the better.  We were lucky enough to have some advertisers, which helped offset the cost of all of that.  All in all, it was a labor of love.  I got a lot of great information for my files out of it, but never really made any money for the time invested.  

  Fast forward to 2012 and we had our last issue in the first quarter.  The post office at that time made bulk mailing a nightmare for small businesses like us and the printer unfortunately passed away from a tragic accident.  I tried to find another printer but unfortunately what Scull Hill Press was charging us could not be beat.  Most other printers wanted to charge 3-4 times for the same product.  It was no longer feasible to sustain so we had to stop printing.  I wanted to start a website immediately, but life got in the way and I just didn’t have the time to devote.  But now, hopefully we can make a go of it and keep this going and make it a valuable asset to everyone interested.