Jerry was what I would call old school. He had old school principles of honesty, integrity, politeness, and great work ethics. He was always 30 minutes early for work and would work all the overtime he could. His love for God, country, family, friends, and the job was always number one with him. Jerry cut his teeth to the working world in west Texas where he and his sister Carolyn hoed and picked cotton for 10 cents an hour. Jerry hired into general Dynamics and now Lockheed Martin as a custodian when he was in his thirties. He then moved into the transportation department where he was in charge of burning secret documents. They later started shredding these documents and Jerry ran the shredder that would create lots of dust, making him look like an abominable snowman. He worked this job for about ten years before he got bumped and came back home to the maintenance department. Jerry worked his last day on Thanksgiving. He really thought it was neat that he started out working for ten cents an hour and made seventy dollars an hour on his last day. He would always say, { It is not how you start out but how you finish.} Jerry never forgot how he started and was very giving of his time and money to everyone. This man worked for me directly for about 15 years and in those years I had gotten to know him pretty well. I always thought of Jerry as a gentle giant. He was soft spoken, polite, caring, and a large man in statue as well as in heart. Although his strength in the later years diminished, he was strong as an ox. You found this out the first time you did a furniture move with him. We would have one man hold a furniture dolly while the other man would lift up the desk or file cabinet onto the dolly. When you worked with Jerry and you were the dolly holder you better be ready or you might be lying on the ground with a desk on top of you. There was one incident where Jerry and three other guys were trying to load a safe that weighed over 4oo pounds. They leaned it toward him and said to balance it while they got the dolly under the safe. They then told Jerry to push it onto the dolly. Well the safe went onto the dolly, over the dolly, and onto the floor with a big crash. Jerry looked at the guys and all he said was I guess I pushed it a little too hard. We are all like brothers and sisters and could push each others buttons once in awhile and get on each others nerves. One time one of the guys pushed Jerry just a little too far. The man was drinking a coke and chewing on the ice while he goaded Jerry. Without hesitation, Jerry reached over and had grabbed the man by the throat, and had him spitting out ice. This same man is still at times called the ice machine. Then there was the time when Jerry was working for another supervisor in sanitation on the night shift named Bill. Jerry was assigned to clean a rest room at 74MA in bldg 1. Most people who clean this rest room get in and out as quick as possible. Bill who is about five feet nothing tall opens the door to the rest room where Jerry who is 6feet 4 and weighing about 280 was cleaning the rest room real thoroughly. Bill told Jerry that he should be through by now and to hurry up. Jerry turns to Bill with a two gallon bucket and a johnny mop in his hand and starts walking towards Bill and says well Mr. Davis I am doing the best I can. I asked Bill what he did then. Bill said I told him he was doing a fine job and keep it up and I got the heck out of there. Don’t think for a minute that because I call Jerry a gentle giant, that he wasn’t intelligent as some may think of cartoon character giants. Jerry was very well read. He probably read more books in a week than I have all my adult life. There wasn’t a subject that he could not offer great insight on. I can remember having philological talks with Jerry and to this day I still don’t know what the heck he was talking about. In conversations Jerry would go so far and if he got into something private or something he did not want to pursue, he would just cut it off. He was a great student of world history and loved to talk about the civil war. His sister got Jerry, who loved to travel, interested in taking bus tours. Jerry would take a whole month of vacation to see this country. He especially enjoyed seeing old civil war battle grounds, Yellow Stone Park, and northern California. He would show me all the pictures he took that would put to shame what a proud grandparent would show of their grandchildren. This was a big release for him because he didn’t have to worry about anything and could just enjoy the moment. Getting back to Jerry’s work, let me tell you about him and his overtime. Every Monday morning Jerry would call me and tell me that he wanted to work overtime either Saturday, Sunday, both, or neither. When he would call, now remember he has worked for me for 15 years and I know his voice, he would say yes this is Jerry Baumann and I would like to work Saturday. Well I would say okay Jerry I will put you down for it. I would then call Bob Davis who sets up the hours and tells us who is on and he would tell me that Jerry has already called him. Thursday or Friday we give the people their assignments for the weekend and Jerry would call me first thing Thursday and say yes this is Jerry Baumann and I would like to know what you want me to do Saturday. Now if I did not yet know what he was to do, I would say call me back Friday. So now it is Friday about 4:00 am and I get the call saying yes this is Jerry Baumann. Salaried people have what we call the 9/80 schedule, which means we work 9 hour days and get every other Friday off. Jerry would sometimes forget which Fridays I had off and I would get the call. One Friday I was having hernia surgery so my wife Kim had my phone and Jerry called. She was telling me about it when I was in recovery and coming out of the anesthesia. She said Jerry had called and when she answered he was startled and said he must have the wrong number. She said well this is Rick’s wife can I help you. I told Kim that was very thoughtful of Jerry to call to see how I was doing and she said no honey, he wanted to know what he was supposed to do Saturday on overtime.