For decades, Geno Chamboredon helped keep Kennywood’s rides operating.
The Garfield native got his start at Kennywood in 1980 as a teenager, running the Jack Rabbit roller coaster during summer. Forty-six years later, he’s still clocking in.
“I did a year at Duquesne (University),” said Chamboredon, who /lives in Munhall. “Then life came along. School wasn’t paying the bills, so I needed a job.”
What began as a summer gig became a career.
Chamboredon started off operating Kennywood rides before moving into maintenance full-time in 1984. He spent years caring for some of the park’s most beloved attractions, including the Thunderbolt and Raging Rapids, before taking on more administrative responsibilities.
Today, he’s a maintenance supervisor at Kennywood and fills in wherever needed.
“I’ve seen a bunch of changes and gotten through them all,” he said. “Kennywood has done me good.”
Besides changes in ownership, the park has seen many transitions. Computers now monitor many ride functions that once relied entirely on human operators. Today’s rides are taller, faster and more technologically complex.
Some things remain the same.
“The old wooden coasters,” Chamboredon said. “Those are still my favorites. They give me a nostalgic kind of feeling knowing that I had a hand in helping all of them to keep plugging along.”
His top three rides? The Jack Rabbit, Thunderbolt and the departed Log Jammer.
“I’d still ride them today,” he said with a chuckle.
To most visitors, winter means Kennywood is asleep. For Chamboredon, it’s when the workload ramps up. The offseason, he said, is the busiest time of year.
“Almost every ride gets taken down to the bearings,” he said. “Parts get replaced. Wood gets replaced. There’s a lot of work.
“It takes a lot of money, time and effort to get everything ready for the upcoming season. We just don’t cover everything up and vacation in a tropical area.”
For years, his daily routine included walking coaster tracks and inspecting trains before guests entered the park.
To generations of local residents, Chamboredon is also a familiar face from Rick Sebak’s WQED documentaries “Kennywood Memories,” “That Kennywood Summer” and “Don’t Stand Up,” where he emerged as one of the park’s most recognizable behind-the-scenes figures.
The show includes footage of Chamboredon climbing the former Laser Loop’s tracks with a co-worker.
“It’s like a big ladder with big steps,” he told Sebak in the show.
Chamboredon has become something of a Kennywood celebrity. Visitors still ask him for selfies, and his likeness is splashed across a mural outside the Thunderbolt.
Kennywood has changed ownership several times during his career, but Chamboredon has remained a constant presence through it all. Two fellow employees recently celebrated 50 years with the park, and he might attempt to hit that milestone.
“I’ll be 65 in July,” he said, while laughing. “I think I’ve got a couple more years left.”
Long before he became one of Kennywood’s longest-serving employees, Chamboredon was a familiar face to generations of Pittsburgh kids — myself included — at the then-Boys Club of Western Pennsylvania in Shadyside.
Many remember him as a floor hockey referee, summer camp counselor and mentor.
My first venture into playing hockey came at the club’s gymnasium. Chamboredon was our referee and ran the program.
“I just enjoyed all the people, the camaraderie,” he said.
He suffered a gruesome workplace accident in January 1981 that became the stuff of legends for the kids.
“Did you hear about Geno?” wide-eyed kids whispered. “Did you see his hand?”
While working with a table saw in the club’s woodshop, his hand became entangled. He lost parts of three fingers on his left hand.
“It was a life changer,” he said.
I remember staring in awe at the hand days after the injury, and his optimism that shone through. He adapted to the injury and it never prevented him from performing his work at Kennywood.
“It’s life,” he said.
For years, Boys Club members would stop Chamboredon at Kennywood to reminisce. I reminded him last month of a floor hockey game in which I scored 10 goals, and he stopped the game early.
Those moments — along with the relationships he’s built at Kennywood — help explain his long tenure.
“It’s a fun place to work,” he said.