Member Profile: Jan Shaw

Member Profile: Jan Shaw

By Craig Fjarlie
Photos are from the collection of Jan Shaw

Jan Shaw is one of those people who are perpetually busy. She has spent most of her life on the administrative side of boat racing, as a timer, club officer, region leader, and APBA Board member. She let others take to the racecourse while she focused on the critical duties—before, during, and after the events—that allowed the regattas to happen. Accordingly, she has been respected and honored for her devotion.

Jan Morgan (her name before she married Howard Shaw) was born in 1951 in Fort Lee, Virginia, where her father was stationed in the Army. The young family moved across the country as her father was stationed in different locations. Finally, he was assigned to Fort Lawton in Seattle, where he was discharged.

It was there when Jan became aware of hydroplanes. “My dad raced cars,” she recalls, “and he was involved with Unlimiteds in the ‘50s. He used to put the gas in the boats, before the turbines. He always took two or three of us to Lake Washington to watch the races. We were right there; we lived in that area.”

Jan graduated from Mountlake Terrace High School, just north of Seattle, in 1969. There she met her future husband, Howard Shaw, a classmate who was racing outboards. “He was part of the Myers group: Bill, Ella Mae, and John Myers. We went racing with those guys,” she explains. While she was going to the races, she also studied to become a nurse. “I went in the U.S. Army student nursing program at Seattle Pacific College (now Seattle Pacific University) and the University of Washington. I worked for 35 years in a hospital.”

Howard and Jan and crew, with Howard’s Formula E Hydro in 1986.

Jan became a member of Seattle Outboard Association and tried racing. “I was in the Powder Puff,” she remembers. “I took a boat out a couple of times in C Stock with Lee Sutter and Rick Sandstrom, and I didn’t like it. Racing wasn’t something I wanted to do. Penny Rautenberg and Millie Laird decided that since I was up at the crack of dawn at Lake Lawrence one year, I should become a timer. I became a timer with Jimmy Benson, and I’ve done that ever since.”

In those years, timing the boats was a labor-intensive task. “We timed each individual boat with stopwatches on a board. It took two people to manage 12 boats on the course, if that’s how many we had. It was pretty complicated in those days. Jimmy Benson had a sheet we filled out and, in the back of the old rule books, it showed the time and what the speed should be. It was not computer-driven; it was simply in the book. We went by what was listed. Most of the time, we didn’t even know if somebody had set a record somewhere else. So, it may have taken a day.”

Jan had an early experience with inboards when Howard became involved with a Crackerbox in the early 1970s. “He was the navigator,” she says. “At that point, it took three guys in a Crackerbox, not just two like now. He either was the navigator, or he pushed (the lever) down for the fuel to be delivered. You had to push it down every time the driver hit the throttle.” Jan timed both inboard and outboard races. “I started doing Black Lake, because we had records set there. Then we started to combine inboards and outboards, off and on, so I tried to be out there if they had outboards on the schedule.”

Howard then focused his racing on outboard classes. “He started in A Stock Hydro, A Stock Runabout, then went to B Outboard Hydro,” Jan remembers. “Actually, John Myers, Bill Myers, and Howard made up the B Outboard class in the early ‘70s. Then he went to D Outboard Hydro, F Outboard Hydro, and then went over to F Racing Runabout, what we currently call 1100 Runabout.” Jan tried riding with Howard in his F Racing Runabout, because it held two people in the cockpit. “I was there a few times, but I wouldn’t call it riding,” she laughs. “It wasn’t my thing to do.”

Jan with Rick Sandstrom and the usual suspects at the Sammamish Slough exhibition in 2016.

Racing was something Jan’s younger brother, Leslie “Butch” Morgan, wanted to do. He began racing outboards and participated for a number of years.

The Shaws were briefly involved with a 1-Litre inboard hydroplane. “We got Mark Mallory with the boat,” Jan says with a smile. “Kayleigh Perkins was our driver at the time. She’s Kayleigh Mallory now. So, we did dabble a little bit in that.”

Although she was busy working as a nurse, Jan took on another project when she founded Woodshed Embroidery. “That was in the days when we had to put all the embroidery, the patches, on all the suits,” she says. “We outsourced it for awhile and I decided it cost too much money, so Howard and I decided to buy a fancy embroidery machine. Started with one machine. I ended up with seven over 35 years. I could sew everything, but doing embroidery by hand sucks, so did it by machine. Made a business out of it. I still own Woodshed Embroidery and I still do a little, but not very much anymore.”

Jan added other obligations to her schedule, moving into various official positions with Seattle Outboard Association and APBA. “I was SOA Secretary, off and on, over about a 10-year period. I was also the Region 10 Secretary for 15 years. Jim Codling was the Region Chairman at the time, and I think Rick Sandstrom might have been Region Chairman afterward. I ran against Jim Codling because I was tired of him telling me what to do. I ran for Region Chairman in 2012 and served to 2014. Nobody had told me I couldn’t serve in a regional office and a national office. I ran for the national APBA Board of Directors in 2014 and won. I couldn’t stay on as Region Chairman, so that went back to Rick Sandstrom. I’ve been a Board member for APBA ever since. I represent seven categories in APBA. It’s all paperwork, for the most part.”

Jan took a boat out for an exhibition run at a recent Seattle Outboard Association event.

More recently, Jan has been working with H1 Unlimited. She describes her duties as “Jack of all trades.” She explains, “I’ve done everything. With H1, you get to do a lot of stuff. At one point, I was the administrator. I set up the hotel rooms, determined where you fly in, fly out, the money, the expense reports. I worked with the race sites, specifically to set up what the Unlimiteds were bringing and what we needed to add to it so they could make some money off the race.” She mentions one expense few casual spectators understand. “The cranes for Unlimiteds and inboards cost $9,000 per race.” She continues with the list, “On race day, you have to register everybody; everybody has to belong to APBA. You have to make sure we have rescue on the water.”

Jan at Seafair with Mariana De Leon Matthews and Pat Malara.

Jan, second from right, with H1 officials.

Chief Referee Doug Rea and Jan Shaw at a H1 race.

One of the most difficult times in Jan’s life occurred when Howard passed away suddenly on December 30, 2022. “Boat racing was the life that I had with him for 50-some years,” she says. “Everybody was calling me, checking on me. Well, we just keep going on and doing stuff.” Seattle Outboard Association developed a memorial trophy that will be awarded annually for five years to the person who embodies the spirit of Howard Shaw. “One more year for that,” Jan remarks.

A month after Howard’s passing, Jan was given the greatest honor of her life. She was inducted into the APBA Honor Squadron, when the annual meeting was held in Seattle. “That’s so cool,” she exclaims. “You have to receive more than one nomination. I’ve had, over time, three years when people were nominating me. They finally accepted the nomination and voted me into the Honor Squadron. That is the coolest award you can win in APBA, in my opinion. I couldn’t quit smiling for a week.”

Jan Shaw and John Fitzgerald were inducted into the APBA Honor Squadron in 2023.

As she looks back at her years in APBA, Jan offers thoughts on the state of boat racing. “H1, I thought five years ago they wouldn’t still be here, but they are. Inboards are struggling, but outboards are not. They have J’s coming up. You have whole families coming up. Overall, APBA was kind of in a non-growth pattern, but right now we’re into growth, especially in Region 10. We’re a large region, and once you leave the metropolitan areas there are not as many members. But we are plenty strong.”

Working or spectating, “I enjoy watching a good boat race.”

When asked how long she plans to remain involved, Jan has no reservations. “Unless my family starts yelling at me, I’ll stay as long as I can. I’m still running around, I’m still going places. I just had some health issues that knocked me down a little bit, but I’m back up. I’m already committed to H1, and I’ve committed to one or two (races) with Seattle Outboard Association. This is my family. I enjoy watching a good boat race. It doesn’t even matter if I’m working or sitting in a chair. All the little kids that started in J’s are now young adults, or even 40-year-olds. They all come and talk to me. Make sure I’m okay, make sure I’m still around. That’s kinda cool. We are family, and that is really, really, important.”