Family affair
Incoming trolley museum director following in grandfather’s tracks
Jeanine DeBor is following her grandfather’s tracks.
“The reason I love this place goes back to my grandfather, Tony DeSensi,” she said Wednesday morning, inside the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, where DeBor is deputy executive director of the Chartiers Township complex – and where the accent is on fun, fun, fun.
Trolley cars were a passion with her grandfather, starting at age 8 at the Tylerdale Car House in Washington. He would watch his father, Patsy, work there, and where his dad would occasionally let him run a trolley around the loop – even though Tony could barely see over the wheel.
His love for these cars and rails developed into a vocation and avocation that would endure until Tony’s death at 88 in 2011. He did break from them during World War II, when he served with the Marines, then upon returning home secured a job with Pittsburgh Railways/Port Authority for 44 years until retirement.
“The day after that, he came here as a volunteer, working with signals and trolley maintenance,” DeBor said, smiling. Her grandfather volunteered at the museum for nearly a quarter-century. “He loved it, and I love it. This is a very comfortable and comforting place to be.”
It also is a place where, in about six weeks, she will be in charge. This lifelong Southwestern Pennsylvanian will be elevated to executive director and CEO of the trolley museum on June 1. She will succeed her boss, Scott Becker, 68, who will be retiring following 32 years as the museum leader.
“I’m very honored to be selected for this position,” said DeBor, a Cecil Township resident, Baldwin High School alumnus and a longtime attorney who maintains her legal license.
“I have big shoes to fill. Scott and our volunteers have done well expanding this place. My job is to keep this legacy intact by increasing membership and number of visitors.”
Those sets of numbers are formidable. The trolley museum has 180 volunteers, and last year, according to DeBor, it drew 48,000 visitors – a record since its 1953 opening.
Becker is certainly familiar with Tony DiSensi’s trolley car legacy and impact on his granddaughter. “I’ve joked with Jeanine that ‘You work in the family business,'” he said, laughing.
“She is a solid person. I’ve known her since she was a teenager, when her grandfather would bring her down here. “She was on our board (when she was working at Duquesne University).”
Becker, incidentally, may be retiring, but will not be leaving the trolley museum. “I’ll be around volunteering,” he said. “I’ve spent more than half of my adult life in trolley museums.”
“I won’t hesitate to tap his brain,” DeBor said. “He will continue to be a great help to this place. He has pounded the pavement for this place.”
The trolley museum is a nonprofit, relying largely on funding. Becker said DeBor’s legal background has helped with fund-raising “when you are applying for grants and corresponding with grantors. Jeanine also has really good management skills. And she knows all of the volunteers and all of them know her and like her.”
He said when he decided to retire, Becker recommended that the board name her executive director and CEO. They did.
“We’re really excited to have her become executive director,” Becker said. “It’s all very positive.”
He has overseen a lot of development at the trolley museum, including a major renovation several years ago. Just ahead is a refurbishing of the Terrible Trolley – Steelers-related, of course.
DeBor said a private collector in Ohio owned this once-popular Pittsburgh-area rail car, which had succumbed to rust and serious other disrepair. The trolley museum acquired it and has been painstakingly resurrecting it. Work has progressed to the point that exterior painting is underway, followed, hopefully, by functioning properly.
Operating the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is a challenge, but the cars, events and good times continue to roll.
“You have to really have a fire in your belly in this job – and Jeanine has that,” Becker said. “Part of that is her family tradition.”
Indeed it is.