PHF Volunteer of the Month

Paul Nelson

	This month our celebrated volunteer is Paul Nelson. 

   Paul Nelson is our current volunteer of the month. He is the Vice-Chairman 
of the board at the Postal History Foundation. Paul came to us in 2003 after retiring 
with his wife, Margo, to Tucson. One of the reasons Paul and Margo retired to Tucson 
was because the Postal History Foundation is here and his friend, Jim Bowman, urged him 
to get involved. He also settled here because he spent time in Tucson in 2001 on the 
ARIPEX Nordia 2001 committee and our air was much cleaner here than in Southern California!
Paul spent 45 years in manufacturing and engineering in the commercial and aerospace 
business.  Most of that time was spent living in Torrance and Pomona, California, working 
for General Dynamics. Paul’s first job after earning his Bachelors of Science in Electrical 
Engineering and Business Management at the University of Colorado was to work for Honeywell 
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There he happened upon a bathing beauty named Margo at one of 
the lake beaches. A year and a half later, they were married.

   After computers were introduced in the workplace, Paul took a full time assignment 
developing the international standard for the exchange of product model data among different 
Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems. After retirement, Paul worked five years as a consultant 
for a Stockholm consultancy helping to implement this ISO standard in industry.
	
   Paul began collecting stamps during his elementary years and has continued through 
his adult life.  He is very involved with everything philatelic in the Scandinavian sense
with emphasis on revenue and tax paid stamps. Included in his many literary philatelic
accomplishments is his Catalog of Scandinavian Revenue Stamps, Volumes I and II,  
contributions to the Posthorn, Postal Stationery, and The American Revenuer, editor of LUREN 
from 1975-2001. He also edited and provided data for two 1998 handbooks of Danish tax paid 
stamps and Finnish revenue stamps and a Gold award winning catalog and handbook about 
Norwegian Revenue Stamps. He has served as President of the Scandinavian Collectors Club 
and the Scandinavian Philatelic Library of Southern California. He provided leadership as 
U.S. Co-Commissioner for NORWEX 97 in Oslo, Norway and U.S. Commissioner for NORDIA 98 in 
Odense, Denmark. Paul’s many philatelic memberships include the American Philatelic Society, 
United Postal Stationery Society, American Revenue Association, Scandinavian Philatelic 
Foundation, Revenue Society of the United Kingdom, Sf Bältespännarna (Society for 
Alternative Philately, Sweden), Dansk Posthistorisk Selskab, and the Arizona Philatelic Rangers.

   Paul is our tour guide of choice at the PHF. He is very good at it and loves to meet new 
people and get to know them. He usually knows the town where tourists are from. His other 
duties at the PHF are publicity, processing donations, library committee, guest speaker for 
local community groups and stamp teacher at his grandchildren’s school in Minneapolis. He is 
very involved in the ARIPEX committee and is a very willing helper with anything that needs 
to be done. Paul’s wife Margo passed away in 2006 and he is usually here every day and it has 
been suggested that we acquire a couch for him to sleep on at night.

   When he is not in Tucson, he is either at a stamp show in another state or visiting his 
daughter, Jennifer and her family in Minnesota.  He loves to spend time with his three 
grandchildren, Mabel, Henry and Charles and hopes they will be future philatelists!

   We enjoy Paul’s quick wit and his ever ready willingness to help around here at the PHF. 
We are thankful that the PHF is his home away from home.

Postal History Foundation, 920 N. First Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719