Guide Profile: Gary Kross

This is the first in a series of biographies about the elite corps of Licensed Battlefield Guides who conduct tours on Segway Personal Transporters™ for SegTours.com.

Gary Kross

Gary Kross

Gary Kross has been a full-time Licensed Battlefield Guide (LBG) at the Gettysburg National Military Park for 23 years (since 1986) and is one of the most popular guides at the park. He is a native of New York, studied History at Marquette University in Wisconsin, and is retired from the military.

Gary is a member of the advisory board of Blue & Gray Magazine, serves as its Associate Editor and has authored numerous special editions of that magazine about the battle of Gettysburg. He has shared his unparalleled knowledge of Gettysburg in a number of other Civil War trade journals and parts of his extensive library of maps, books, photos, and CDVs have appeared in books by other authors. Most recently, he was the guide and narrator on Stephen Recker’s Virtual Gettysburg, an interactive battlefield tour that is distributed on CD-ROM.

Gary is widely known as an authority on the tactics that were employed by both armies at Gettysburg and he is sought out by corporations to conduct leadership workshops using historical lessons and role models from the battle. A popular speaker at colleges and Civil War Round Tables, he has also been a guest lecturer at the Smithsonian Institute and the guest historian on numerous TV shows that have been aired on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, TNT, and the Travel Channel.

Gary thinks that the Segway is a great way to conduct a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield. He said, “Walking tours are generally too slow and exhaust listeners before getting too far; bus tours are too fast and don’t give guides much freedom to address individual interests. This is like my perfect tour.”

In addition to personally conducting as many Segway tours of the battlefield as possible, Gary is the guide and narrator of the audio tours that are offered by SegTours.com.  In those tours, guests are accompanied on their Segways by a staff escort while they listen to Gary describe the events and personalities on the battle through a recorded audio.

Gary likes the Segway so much that he owns one himself and might be seen gliding the streets of Gettysburg in warm weather.




3 Responses to “Guide Profile: Gary Kross”

  1. barney_h Says:

    Gary is the best. If he’s working for you, then that says a lot about your business.

  2. John Newbold Says:

    Gary! I want to thank you for the great Segway tour this past Saturday. The two fresh fish that were with me really enjoyed it and I picked up several tidbits concerning the first day. By the way, how’s your back? Don’t forget the 12th NJ!

  3. John Kent Says:

    My wife and I took a trip with a bunch of other History teachers a few years ago. We were touring historical areas of PA (yes…we are geeks). The highlight of our trip, hands down, was when our tour bus guide hired Gary Kross to give us a few key battlefield tours. On top of the battlefield tours, Gary also gave us a detailed and amazing driving tour from the front of our bus. His knowledge level was amazing. If you could, try to imagine close to 40 history teachers pinging Gary with questions. They weren’t trying to stump him…everyone was just super interested and ENTHRALLED with his knowledge level. Gary not only knew every answer, he had great literature suggestions. I pulled out my camera and grabbed a few videos of Gary…they are on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDhu75RN3wQ and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_eZDl67vs&feature=related My regret is that I only got the last 2 locations where we stopped. Also interesting…you will see Gary holding a water in the videos. He had a terrible cold…but I think he was so into giving a super tour to History teachers (teach the teacher…), that you can barely tell. I will eventually go back…I just hope Gary is still working…a segtour with him would be worth every penny.

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