Jay Severance

Jay has had a lifelong interest in trains. His grandfather was a Freight Agent on the Rock Island Railroad, descended from several generations of railroad men. He received an engineering degree from Illinois and an MBA from Wisconsin. He worked for Trane air conditioning company in La Crosse, WI, Lexington, KY, Epinal, France, and Waco, TX. His career included manufacturing engineer, plant manager, general manager, and business planning director for Trane Europe. In his early years, he rode the Burlington Zephyr to Minneapolis for business and later used the excellent passenger trains in Europe. All of this led him to become involved in passenger rail advocacy with All Aboard Minnesota.