Oil Patch Bits: TDS’ Jones retiring after 31 years with company

Tire Distribution Systems said June 28 that Rod Jones, commercial sales representative, will be retiring this month after being with the company for more than 31 years.

Jones’s previous experience as a truck driver landed him a tire sales position in 1979 with TDS, then known as Firestone. He later transferred to its Anchorage office in 1982 from Meridian, Miss., where he and his wife still own a home and 30 acres of land.

“The tire business has been extremely kind to me,” said Jones. “I’ve enjoyed some real long term relationships with the people in the oil patch.”

This fall he and his wife, a retired school teacher, plan on starting another adventure by “traveling America,” taking in the countryside and enjoying some golf games over the next three years. One of their first stops will be to visit their only daughter, a professional student, currently attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York.

Jones will continue to call Alaska home, pursuing his passion of being a guide on the Kenai River full time, which he has been doing on a part-time basis for the past 17 years.

Editor’s note: All of these news items — some in expanded form — will appear in the next Arctic Oil & Gas Directory, a full color magazine that serves as a marketing tool for Petroleum News’ contracted advertisers. The next edition will be released in September.