Medina Railroad Museum names new executive director

Jeff Lewis served many years as a VP with PathStone

Photo by Ginny Kropf: Medina native Jeff Lewis talks about his vision for the future of the Medina Railroad Museum. He was named its executive director in January.

MEDINA – The new director of the Medina Railroad Museum is no stranger to Medina.

Jeff Lewis, now a resident of Carlton, was born in Lockport and grew up on Elm Street in Medina. After graduating from Medina High School, he spent 1969 to 1974 in the Navy, where he served on a submarine.

His career led him to PathStone in Rochester in 1976, where he was vice president of direct service operations, retiring in 2022. During his years there, Lewis led a group of more than 200 people in the Northeast, Midwest and Puerto Rico to provide job training, job development and placement and specialized training. He was also the IT director.

He was enjoying retirement buying and selling old bottles, coins and stamps, when he got a call from Nyla Gaylord, director of United Way of Orleans County, who told him the Medina Railroad Museum was looking for a director. In December he met with the museum’s board president, George Bidleman, and started in his new position after the holidays.

“What I hope to bring to this museum is professionalism to the staff, consistent policies and procedures and a level of excellence,” Lewis said. “I am also experienced in grant writing.”

He has already developed a work plan for employees and presented it to the board. Among all the employees and board members, they represent more than 200 years of experience in trains and model railroading, Lewis said.

“With their help, we will move this museum to a place where we are the best museum in New York, and certainly the best train museum.”

His goal is to create interactive displays so visitors get to do more than just look at static displays.

“The role of a museum is not only to protect and preserve the history of a community, but to share it,” Lewis said.

He plans to create relationships with area merchants to benefit them and the museum.

“If we can find partners in the community, we will be good neighbors,” Lewis said. “I lived in this community. I love this community. This is home.”

Staff are already busy archiving and cataloging everything in the museum.

Lewis will work alongside Dawn Winkler, who started at the museum in 2005, working with museum founder Marty Phelps and his fiancée, Linda Klein. Winkler eventually moved into the director position, until leaving in 2018, only to be brought back in late 2022. She has assumed the position of operations director/events coordinator.

“I look at Dawn as a partner in operating the museum,” Lewis said. “Not only do we need to focus on our collection and interactive displays, but to expand rail events.”

Currently the museum hosts an Easter train, Day Out with Thomas, fall foliage trains and Polar Express. With the recent purchase of a third dining car, dinner/murder mystery trains are a possibility.

Winkler said their combined events bring 32,000 people a year to Medina.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.