Joe Hu/Town Crier

LAH resident Gwen Jones uses business, faith to help felons, children to reach their potential

While jogging near her Los Altos Hills home one spring morning in 1976, Gwen Jones was confronted by several youths shouting racial epithets and hurling unopened beverage cans at her. The young men might have hoped to humiliate the African-American woman, but they failed. While Jones was cut and bruised by the one can that hit its mark and momentarily shaken, she did not become bitter or cynical as a result of the incident. She was then, as she has always been, an energetic, determined person with a strong and abiding faith in God and her fellow man.

In a remarkable twist of fate, 19 years later, Jones and her husband Jesse purchased an Oakland-based company that manufactures the trucks that deliver beverages like the ones thrown at her that terrible spring day. Gwen Jones, 57, is the president and CEO of Gregory Truck Body and Fire Apparatus Inc., the only woman in the United States to head such a company in a male-dominated industry.

Jones has spent many hours over the past six years learning about an industry in which she had no prior experience. She expanded Gregory Truck Body to include manufacturing fire trucks and other specialty vehicles, some featuring design innovations. However heading a company with 30 employees is not the central focus of her life or done for her own glory. She said she sees herself and her life as an instrument for God.

As she has done since she was 17, Jones ministers to men and women in state prisons and assists convicted felons who want to make the often difficult transition back into society after their release from state prisons and county jails. She offers some of them apprenticeships, training and jobs at her company. She has formed a non-profit corporation, the Yeshua Second Chance Foundation, to benefit these men and women. "For about 40 years, I have been going out of maximum security prisons," Jones said. "I teach inmates there's a better way ... It's about who I am and what I am, as opposed to my profession."

Jones strives to help inner-city children see a bright future for themselves. Believing that these children can better envision their futures by meeting minorities who have been successful in all walks of life, not just sports or entertainment, she encourages school groups to tour her company. Her office walls are decorated with crayon drawings with captions such as, "That's the fire truck the lady built." "If children see it, they can be it," she said. "I'm trying to inspire them to aspire to use (their brains). ... I am honored to be an instrument for that."

Jones grew up in Redwood City and was just 13 when she accompanied the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church to Soledad Prison to minister to inmates. She was to play the piano at the service. She recalled it as a frightening experience. Her pastor and she were locked in a small room and she heard the sounds of shuffling feet in the hallway - prisoners in leg chains, who filed into the room row by row. She also recalled the sound of the prison guard cocking his gun before the service began.

However, she returned to the prison with her pastor every weekend. When the pastor died four years later, Jones, by then a graduate of Sequoia High School, took over the ministry herself - at 17.

Her prison ministry continued during her years at Foothill College and the College of San Mateo; as a young wife and mother to sons, Keith and Kelly, living in Los Altos Hills; and as a free-lance legal secretary in the Los Altos/Palo Alto area. Her prison ministry expanded to include San Quentin and Folsom prisons, as well as women's correctional facilities. Of the felons released from prison, she said, "Most people don't realize what it's like in prison. They live in 4-by-7-foot cells ... They are given no rehabilitation ... No one wants to hire a convicted felon. Their families often ostracize them because they're ashamed of them." Many convicted felons want to turn their lives around, she said, but don't know where to turn for the help they need. That's the guidance Jones wants to provide.

Over the years, Jones educated herself in the psychology of human behavior. She took classes and visited drug rehabilitation centers and 12-step programs. She has grown in knowledge and maturity, and was able to assist an estimated 300 or more former prison and jail inmates to find jobs and re-enter society.

Six years ago, Jones' life took a significant turn when she and her husband, Jesse, purchased Gregory Truck Body. Jesse, a former contracting engineer whose company did excavating and paving, supported his wife to reach her full potential as a person, she said. He wanted her to be the president and CEO of the company, which builds trucks for wholesale beverage distributors who deliver Anheuer Busch, Coors, Pepsi and Coca Cola products to stores and restaurants. "You are a capable person, you articulate well, and people can feel your emotions and sincerity," Jesse told her at the time. "You would make an excellent president."

The company expanded its business soon thereafter by purchasing another company that built and maintained fire and other special trucks for municipal, county and state entities. Since the company's expansion into a new market, Gregory Truck Body and Fire Apparatus has engineered several innovative designs. One of the company's innovations is a truck for Caltrans that features a special conveyor belt so that workers can safely pick up road cones on busy highways. Another is a smaller, light weight fire truck able to negotiate steep hills and tight curves - the Oakland model, named after the disastrous 1991 firestorm in the Oakland Hills.

Two of Jones' longtime employees (neither of whom has ever been in legal trouble) describe her as a capable businesswoman and a caring person. "She's concerned about the people she works with ... a kind and caring person," said Tony Rosellini, the company's head engineer for the past six years. "She is a pleasure to work with," said Dennis Mills, the company's vice president of corporate development. "She's honest. Her integrity is impeccable. She puts out a lot of effort and her energy is well directed. She has a heart of gold and she's smart."

Jones' husband of 38 years and sons, Kelly, now 35, and Keith, 37, work for the company. "My husband is an incredible man ... and I'm very proud of my sons," she said.

Despite the long hours spent building her business, Jones has continued to reach out to help prisoners and those re-entering society by sharing her belief in God's redeeming power with inmates in person and in correspondence. "I'm not out to convert anyone to a particular faith," Jones said. "(Felons) are looking for a different way and that's what I'm teaching them. There is a different way and it's much more rewarding."

Her already strong faith deepened after she survived extensive surgery for two brain aneurysms two-and-a-half years ago. Her El Camino Hospital neurosurgeon warned her family that even if she survived the surgery, she would probably suffer at least partial paralysis, speech impairment and a long period of rehabilitation. Instead, she was home in less than five days, her speech and movement completely normal, and back at work at the end of 10 days. "I can now say guess what happened to me," Jones said. "It gave me proof to give to others that there is a God, that Jesus was with me."

Jones has also chosen to hire some convicted felons for training apprenticeships at her company. While maintaining high ideals, she is also very pragmatic about whom she chooses to hire. "By now, I've had enough experience to know if someone is truly remorseful and really serious about turning their life around," she said.

Two years ago, Jones formed Yeshua's Second Chance Foundation to seek corporate and other donor money to expand her rehabilitation program. Yeshua is Hebrew for Jesus, she explained. She believes her positive experiences with an estimated 100 or more felons who have trained at Gregory Truck Body have repaid her investment of time, money and caring many times over. She recalled the 2- year-old son of one of her trainees saying proudly, "My daddy builds fire trucks." Jones said one of the best moments of her life was when an employee, a convicted felon she had hired three years earlier, came to speak with her during his afternoon break. "I just wanted you to know I have my own apartment, a bank account and a brand new car, and, Gwen, today is my last day of probation."

For more information or to make a donation to Gwen Jones' foundation, send mail to Yeshua's Second Chance Foundation, Gregory Truck Body and Fire Apparatus Inc., 711 Kevin Court, Oakland, CA 94621

For information logon to www.firegregory.com or call 855-9009 or (510) 635-7171.

Email (will not be published)

Name

Title

Comment
 remaining characters

Post

We reserve the right to use comments submitted on our site in whole or in part. We will not publish comments that contain advertising or website links.