It was an ending no one foresaw. Mere weeks after being diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor, Jerry Thrift – a giant of a man with an outsized passion for learning, mentoring and sharing his love of the science of maintenance – was gone.
Thrift’s co-workers at Ryder System and industry colleagues at The Technology and Maintenance Council were shocked not only at the suddenness of his death but also at the void left by this quiet but influential individual and left to consider his accomplishments.
For his wife of 39 years, Pat, and their daughters, Micah and Kortney, and granddaughter, Harper, the loss was profound: a father and – now – a grandfather gone far too soon. But if anything, Jerry Thrift had been unselfish with every aspect of his outsized heart and personality. He’d had a worldview that focused on both faith and family. In Thrift’s outsized embrace, “family” included not just Pat and his beloved daughters, but also his company and an entire industry.
Formative years
Born in 1952, Thrift was the eldest son of a working-class family in Savannah, Ga. His father, Foster, was a boilermaker at the local paper mill, while his mother, Reba, was a homemaker until Jerry and his younger brother, Ricky, were older, when she reentered the workforce as an administrative assistant.
If anything, the Thrift household was one of self-reliance and an all-American work ethic. “Our father could make stuff with his bare hands,” Ricky Thrift recalls today. “He had his torches and wrenches and was very talented. I remember when we were kids, he built a trailer for his fishing boat from scratch. Jerry definitely inherited his mechanical interest and ability.”
The Thrift boys were expected to pitch in, so work both around that house and away from it were the norm growing up. As a young man, Jerry held a variety of jobs, including running his own small lawn-cutting service. His younger brother vividly remembers him constantly tinkering with his riding lawnmower.
