Maybe you know Ross from his years as the Education Coordinator and his work during the APS Summer Seminar. Or maybe you've spoken to him about using the stamps.org website in his role as project manager. Development Assistant Erin Seamans spoke with Ross about working from home, his favorite website projects, and his own stamp collection.
Meet Ross Jones, Project Manager
What is your job title and what do you do at the American Philatelic Society?
I’m a project manager here at the APS. I work on projects to support different APS department goals, help manage our data analytics, and develop many of our front end online applications.
How long have you worked for APS?
I started working at the APS in 2018 just before Summer Seminar.
Is there one resource on the website you’d like to highlight for members that is connected to your job?
The resource I’d like to highlight is the Newsroom at stamps.org/news. It’s a great place to read the latest APS news, thanks to our awesome content team. It’s also a powerful integrated web application with a full suite of sharing buttons, modern SEO, and a series of custom built algorithms. But most importantly it lets the APS share news with thousands of collectors. In the last six months more than 90 thousand individuals visited our Newsroom (and now you’re here too!).
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Ross, June 2020.
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Ross and his wife Sarah.
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As Education Coordinator, Ross spent a fair amount of time moving boxes of stamps around (for StampsTeach, the Holocaust Stamp Project, donations, etc).
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One of the King Denis stamp series that Ross collects (Portugal Scott 768).
Are you a stamp collector? If so, what do you like to collect?
This is a question I’ve heard a lot since I started working here. I wasn’t originally a stamp collector but over the last two years I’ve certainly started to accumulate some philatelic material. I have a particular soft spot for the 1953 Portuguese series depicting King Denis astride his horse. As a southpaw myself I am always on the lookout for depictions of left-handedness (if you look at one of these stamps you’ll see the horseman’s sword is being carried in the left hand). Jeff Stage, a coworker at the time, should get full credit for introducing me to the series. He wrote a great piece about these stamps for The American Philatelist [July 2018], and then encouraged me to start a collection of the series. Now, more than a year later I am happy to report that I am well on my way to completing both a used and on-cover collection of the series.
How have you transitioned to working from home? What have you been doing since you’ve been working from home?
I’m sure the transition to working from home has been smoother for me than for many. Most of my job happens online. When we first transitioned to remote work things were extremely busy. The Content Team worked tirelessly to reach out to our members and other collectors in new ways. Many parts of the website had to adapt quickly to support these new changes. We added overlays and notifications to help users find the most relevant information. The rate of change has slowed since then but not our desire to connect more fully with our membership. You won’t be able to see many of these changes directly, but they are connecting more collectors than ever before.
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100 Match Factory Place
Bellefonte, PA 16823
c/o APS Cares
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Please select APS Cares in the Gift Designation.
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