Adapted from WESTPEX – The First 50 Years by Kristin Patterson, © 2010 WESTPEX, Inc. · About this history · ↑ History overview
The WESTPEX chairmanship is a year-round volunteer job: well-organized, articulate, friendly, forward-thinking, and passionate about philately. The work is twenty-four hours a day on weekends; complaints come to the chairman; the pay is zero. Across the show’s first fifty years, six men did it. Each one received the Council’s prestigious Chaloner Award for exemplary service to philately — Clary in 1954, Thompson in 1962, Oliver in 1975, Waller in 1987, Shalimoff in 1997, Jarvis in 2003. Three more chairmen have served since the book was written; their sections are at the bottom of the page.
Joseph M. Clary, 1960 – 1969
Born in Colorado in 1905, raised in eastern Kansas, Clary joined the Navy in 1922 and shipped to Goat Island (now Yerba Buena) in San Francisco Bay. He retired as a Lieutenant Commander in 1965 after a long career that included WWII service. A founder of the California Collectors Club in 1938, he collected Manchukuo, Poland, and Western Territorial Covers.
Clary’s ten-year run as the first WESTPEX chairman is the founding period covered in detail on the Origins page. He chaired the APS Convention Committee from 1961 to 1979 and was responsible for the APS organizing its own conventions and exhibitions — leading the first standalone APS show in San Francisco in 1977. The APS gave him the Luff Award in 1964 for outstanding service.
After ten years as chairman he stepped to vice-chairman, holding that role through 1990 and continuing as a director until his death on August 8, 1996. Forty-one years on WESTPEX — four of them setting up the show with his hands. His wife Gladys Clary, never a stamp collector, has continued to volunteer for WESTPEX and is now in her nineties.
Cyrus R. Thompson, 1970 – 1982
Thompson served as jury chairman at the very first WESTPEX in 1960, setting the standard for the show’s judging tradition. He was Council president in 1961 – 62, vice-chairman to Clary throughout the 1960s, and took over as chairman in 1970 — though his first show in that role would be one he couldn’t attend, recovering from a heart attack a month before opening day.
An accountant for forty years at Bethlehem Steel, Thompson collected U.S. covers, V-mail, and the Americana series, with specialized exhibits in the Overrun Nations Series and 20th Century U.S. Fancy Cancels on Registered Covers. He received the Luff Award in 1981 for outstanding service to the APS, the same year he stepped down as APS treasurer.
Thompson chaired WESTPEX for thirteen years — the longest tenure of any of the six. After 1982 he served eight more years as vice-chairman through medical issues that increasingly slowed him. Thirty-three years on WESTPEX. He died August 12, 1998 at 88.
William J. Oliver, 1983 – 1992
A draftsman by profession with the State of California Division of Highways and later the Department of Water Resources, Oliver retired in 1982 — just as he became WESTPEX’s third chairman. He started collecting at eleven, focused on the Philippines by fifteen, and eventually exhibited Philippine revenues, air-mail flight covers, and Japanese-occupation issues at national and international level.
His first encounter with WESTPEX was in 1970 as an apprentice juror; he became active in 1973 as Council president. As an accredited APS judge, he chaired the WESTPEX 1976 jury before becoming general chairman in 1983. His memory of the era: the Cherries Jubilee desserts the Jack Tar / Cathedral Hill Hotel served at the awards banquets, carried into a dimmed dining room flaming — until the 1984 hotel fire ended that tradition.
Oliver chaired for ten years, then served as vice-chairman through the 1990s. Thirty-seven years and counting — he’s currently an honorary director and still attends meetings. “WESTPEX has been a special and enjoyable part of my life,” he says. “The journey has been wonderful.”
Charles R. Waller, 1993
Waller’s connection to WESTPEX began before he knew it. As an Air Force air policeman serving on Air Force One under Eisenhower and Kennedy, he had a layover at the Whitcomb Hotel on April 22, 1960 — opening day of the very first WESTPEX. As an avid collector (Iceland, Greenland, Provinces of Canada, England), he didn’t miss the show.
By profession an IRS revenue officer, Waller joined the WESTPEX committee in 1982 as security officer when Oliver became chairman. He served as Council president in 1986 – 87, and was actively involved in winning the Pacific ’97 international stamp show for San Francisco. He took over as WESTPEX chairman in 1993 — but resigned mid-year when his wife became seriously ill, and his role as chief financial officer of Pacific ’97 demanded full attention. He returned to assist WESTPEX for a total of fifteen years and is currently an honorary director.
George V. Shalimoff, 1993 – 2001
Born in San Francisco on Halloween 1930, Shalimoff has lived there his entire life. He spent nearly forty years at the U.C. Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) in the Optical Spectroscopy group of Actinide Chemistry. He started collecting stamps at ten while recovering from influenza in 1940 — he chose Russia because his father was receiving mail from Soviet relatives, and he’d clip the stamps from incoming envelopes.
He entered his first exhibit at WESTPEX in 1974 — a three-frame display of Russian material that earned a vermeil. Roger Skinner asked him to join the WESTPEX Committee after he stayed late to help clean up at one of the 1980s shows. He coordinated the bin room for the 1992 APS show in Oakland, and was volunteer coordinator for Pacific ’97. He stepped in as WESTPEX chairman when Waller resigned in 1993.
His first WESTPEX show as chairman in 1994 took place a week after his marriage — he and his bride spent their honeymoon at the show. He led the show through the 1990s, the year off for Pacific ’97, and into the new century. Of the eventual move to the SF Airport Marriott, he says it was “the best idea ever.” Shalimoff continues today as vice-chairman and leader of the Marketing & Sales Team.
Edward H. Jarvis, 2002 – 2017
Born in Warsaw, New York in 1944, Jarvis grew up in San Diego and moved to San Francisco in 1974. A U.S. Army veteran with a tour in Viet Nam (1967 – 69), he is now a property manager and investor.
He came to philately late and by accident. A friend whose husband had recently died was sorting through his “stuff” in 1988 and found an orange box of stamps — corner-cut stamps her husband had saved from incoming mail, plus her uncle’s WWII-era beginner collection. A dealer offered her $20; she felt taken advantage of. Jarvis offered $50; she turned him down. A year later, on his birthday, she gave him the box. He started collecting in his late forties.
His first stamp show was WESTPEX 1994 — as a setup volunteer. At that show, Mae and Frank Vignola introduced him to two Luxembourg collectors and over a single lunch “indoctrinated him into the world of the Grand Duchy.” Luxembourg has been his passion ever since.
During Jarvis’s tenure WESTPEX moved venues to the SF Airport Marriott, brought back the opening ribbon-cutting ceremony, secured 501(c)(3) non-profit status, increased the volunteer base, and produced an annual surplus through the late-2000s economic downturn. “Always looking for new ideas,” the book notes, “Jarvis allowed volunteers to implement things never tried before.”
Jarvis stepped down after the 2017 show — his sixteenth as chairman. His tenure is the longest in WESTPEX history, surpassing Cyrus Thompson’s thirteen years. He continues to serve as an honorary director, and his wife Judy Jarvis remains an honorary director alongside him.
Clyde Homen, 2018 – 2021
Homen had served as Edward Jarvis’s vice-chairman through the mid-2010s. He took over the gavel for the 58th show in 2018, ran the 2019 show, and led WESTPEX through the most disruptive period in its history — the COVID-19 pandemic that reshaped the 2020 and 2021 shows.
The 2018 show ran under the unusual theme of California Declares War on Squirrels 1918; the 2019 theme was John W. Geary, San Francisco’s first postmaster and first mayor. Homen continues to serve on the WESTPEX board.
Daryl Reiber, 2022
Reiber had been vice-chairman through the Homen years. He took over for the show’s return to its traditional April slot at the Marriott in 2022, with Behruz Nassre-Esfahani stepping up as vice-chairman. The 62nd show’s theme was the 85th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge — a fitting choice for a show finding its way back into rhythm after the pandemic.
Behruz Nassre-Esfahani, 2023 – Present
Nassre-Esfahani took over as Chairman of the Board for the 63rd show in 2023, becoming the eighth person to hold the role since 1960. A WESTPEX volunteer for years before, he had served on the Marketing & Sales Team since at least 2013 and as vice-chairman through 2022.
The shows under his chairmanship have leaned into San Francisco-anchored themes: the 150th anniversary of the cable car (2023), the sesquicentennial of the Universal Postal Union (2024), and the 175th anniversary of California statehood (2025). The 2024 show was selected as the UPU’s North American showcase for its 19th competition, putting WESTPEX on the international map with exhibits from 28 countries.
Adapted from WESTPEX – The First 50 Years by Kristin Patterson, © 2010 WESTPEX, Inc. · About this history →