She Restores Tanks

For Liz Leggett Papp, the route to her dream job was quite literally long and anything but direct.

“I’m originally from Montreal, Quebec,” said Papp, who works at Mil-Spec Vehicle Restorations in Belvidere, N.J. “I now live in New Jersey, a small town called Port Murray.”

She moved to New Jersey several years ago as her husband, Glenn, was operating his family’s business there. However, she was working as an automotive journalist and effectively free to do so from nearly any location. Once in the United States, she signed on as an apprentice in a restoration shop, and that was only the beginning.

“I’ve always been working with vehicles,” Papp said. “Actually, I run steam locomotives. There’s the Maine Narrow Gauge (Railroad Co. & Museum), which I volunteer at, Clark’s Trading Post, and I also do live steam, which is scaled-down trains, so