Jeff Minard

Jeffrey Minard was born in 1948 in Newark, New Jersey and started collecting license plates at age six the same year ALPCA was formed but didn't join the club until 1963. He grew up in North Syracuse, New York and moved to Southern California in 1964 where things started getting serious. He was the first President of the Southern California region in 1975 (oldest region in ALPCA) and was elected to the ALPCA Board of Directors the same year. Since then, he has held every elected national position the club has to offer and then some. He did the first club financial audit and published the first budgets upon becoming President. He published the first roster with numerical cross-reference, did the first convention auction survey and newsletter survey, all from 1980 through 1989. He started the numbered convention souvenir plate program that has raised thousands of dollars for the club treasury. Not content with these activities Jeff aggregated three private plate-oriented websites in 1997 to create ALPCA.ORG and served as the first web manager and contributes as the online QA responder for the website.

In his spare time Jeff has written countless articles on license plates for the club newsletter and other periodicals. He wrote the second nationally published book on license plates Whozwho Behind California Personalized License Plates and co-authored the best selling book A Moving History that chronicles 100 years of license plates and 50 years of ALPCA. He organized the first International convention ever held in California in 2006. He is also ALPCA's resident ombudsman with ebay where his actions have resulted in much smoother relations for plate collectors' worldwide. He was influential in their dropping their 10-year rule to 5 years, and the 5-year rule to the present 3 years.

He recently purchased IDPUBCO and with it the rights to The License Plate Book a long-standing periodical published by the late Thomson Murray. He has been an archaeologist, a software developer, and a senior business development executive and has written over seventy-five technical books and articles. Jeff holds a BA from UCLA, an MBA from Pepperdine and graduated from an international business program at Oxford University. He is a veteran of the US Army signal corps. An extensive traveler Jeff has taught in Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. In 2006 he did short-term missionary work in Africa on HIV/AIDS relief, and helping World Vision and Opportunities International, with their programs in child sponsorship and micro lending. In 2007 he will be coordinating medical clinics in Egypt and Palestine. Wonder when he gets the time to collect plates?

Jeff epitomizes the spirit of ALPCA as a dedicated collector who has repeatedly shared his knowledge and talent about license plates with members new and old and continues to do so. The membership is proud to acknowledge Jeffrey Minard with induction to the ALPCA Hall of Fame.