JONES, Arthur T. (Tedd)

Arizona Silver Belt, Globe, Arizona, Tuesday, July 07, 2015 Arthur T. ‘Tedd’ Jones, 86 Tedd, age 86, died in his sleep on June 27, 2015 in Phoenix. He was born in Globe on June 1, 1929 and was raised in Miami, Ariz. by his parents, Paul and Zelpha Jones, a teacher. Tedd’s father was the general superintendent of a copper mine in Miami, dying when Tedd was just 15. To help support his mother and two sisters, Tedd, obtained a job as a laborer with Hagen Construction, a road builder, allowing him to work fulltime while attending high school part time. Receiving a scholarship to Notre Dame, Tedd continued working as a laborer and heavy equipment operator on summer breaks, before becoming a general foreman with Hagen after obtaining a civil engineering degree in 1951. Tedd then met Nancy Fulbright, an attorney in Florence, Ariz. Married in 1954, Tedd and Nancy moved to San Francisco so Tedd could take a job with a civil engineering design firm, but Tedd shortly answered a blind want ad for a road builder seeking an engineer. The contractor turned out to be the largest in California, and over the next 10 years Tedd and Nancy moved every six months or so as Tedd progressed from being a project engineer to project superintendent to area superintendent with Guy F. Atkinson Construction on a series of freeway and canal jobs during the heyday of new California public works construction. During these years, the couple’s three children were born. With the children reaching school age, Tedd and Nancy moved back to Arizona in 1964 with Tedd taking a job at M.M. Sundt Construction, then based in Tucson, where they lived for the next 30 years. Tedd came to oversee all of Sundt’s heavy engineering operations, ultimately becoming M.M. Sundt’s President in the 1980s and early 1990s. When asked about his career in developing transportation infrastructure in California and Arizona, Tedd would state that all he ever did was move dirt, and then recall family lore of a gold mine in Mexico operated by his father and grandfather who subsequently migrated to Silver City, N.M. Tedd would close by saying, “In three generations, we went from mining gold and silver to copper to dirt.” At an age when most people retire, Tedd found out what everybody else already knew: aside from Notre Dame football and his family, Tedd’s true passion remained work. Relocating with Nancy to Phoenix, Tedd, became an executive with another road builder, then a volunteer janitor at a hospital cafeteria following his second open heart surgery, before finishing his career back at Sundt Corp., now headquartered in Tempe, where he worked for an additional 10 plus years into his late 70s. Tedd was straightforward, humble, generous, demanding of himself and others, a story teller, a mentor, a lifelong reader of history, and wholly unimpressed with himself and his accomplishments. Tedd was preceded in death by his wife, Nancy, who died on May 5, 2015. He is survived by his sisters, Phyllis Mossholder and Shirley Walker; sons, Mack and Tom Jones; daughter Jenny Jones and granddaughter, Maggie Jones. A funeral mass will be held at St. Thomas the Apostle, 2312 E. Campbell Ave, Phoenix, on Friday, July 10, 2015 at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please make a charitable donation to “St. Joseph the Worker,” whose website is sjwjobs.org. Arrangements by Hansen Mortuaries.