Interview with Kirk Gillis, the new executive director of the APS

By David Hartwig

During the busy slate of events at the Great American Stamp Show, held Aug. 14-17 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, Ill., Linn’s had the opportunity to interview Kirk Gillis, the new executive director of the American Philatelic Society.

Gillis started with the APS on July 14 after previously working as a sales and marketing officer for the United States Mint. Before his position at the Mint, Gillis helped form the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation and set up successful digital ventures in East Africa.

He replaces Scott English, who remained at the APS during a transition period following the announcement of his departure in November 2024 and concluding with the Great American Stamp Show.

How has the transition been from the Mint?

I was a little bit constrained in the federal government in terms of innovation. A friend and colleague pointed out this position for me and said you’ve done a lot of big transformation things here at the Mint, why don’t you take a look at this? I did, and I found that the more I dug into it, the more interesting it became to me.

I’ve got a long history of working in the hobby area. I started off at the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, my first real job after grad school. I did seven years there, and that was about getting people to participate in fishing.

As you saw in my bio, I spent 12 years in East Africa doing e-commerce and marketing, and then I came to the Mint, and it was more collecting. They were suffering from a very similar challenge that philately is. It was experiencing an aging demographic and a priority to change that.

What do you think is going to transfer to philately from numismatics?

I think understanding collectors and what motivates collectors is very important. Although there’s a lot of overlap, there’s some very big differences.

And even though I’ve only been around for a short period of time, I think probably the most glaring difference is how social philately is compared to numismatics. There’s also social components to numismatics, but they’re not inherent to the same degree as philately.

There’s active clubs all over the country, there are a number of volunteers, and I think part of that is the motivation.

People create coins for lots of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is it’s value-driven collecting. Part of that is because they make a lot of coins out of precious metals, but then there’s also the scarcity. There’s a big component to numismatics that’s value-driven.

Clearly there’s value in stamps as well, but I don’t see the same motivation. The motivation is more cerebral, it’s more academic. Although it’s a very solitary activity at times, you get to the point where, OK, now I need to share this.

That’s what they do at the clubs and at the shows, and it’s an incredibly social movement. It’s nice, interesting, and quirky in the best kind of way.

How’s your last month been? Because it’s been about a month, right?

It’s been about a month, but in reality, I would say it’s been about two and a half weeks because I spent two weeks in the office. I was living in a hotel. I spent two weeks living up there so I could meet the team.

Then I had to go back to Bethesda and work remotely because we were in the process of selling our house and buying a house. But even those next two weeks, I really only worked about four days a week because of everything that was going on.

Then I came right here. So in a way, it’s been two and a half weeks.

What a way to get immersed in a hobby. That’s good timing to be here [at Great American Stamp Show].

Just so you know, this was not my first stamp show. Before I applied, I went to Springpex because before even applying, I wanted to understand it.

So I went to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, and I went to Springpex on the advice of a good friend and colleague, John Schorn. He used to be the former chief counsel at the U.S. Mint. So a colleague and a friend, and somebody I consider a mentor. He made that excellent suggestion.

I went to both of those because I wanted to get a feel for what everyone was talking about.

Then I went to Napex as well because that was after I decided to apply, but before I had my interview.

It was nice to watch the progression of Springpex and Napex to the Great American Stamp Show.

I wanted to see what I was getting myself ... well, what I was doing. I didn’t know much about philately. I still don’t, but I got to experience and press some palms and meet some people.

How else are you working to immerse yourself into the hobby and the job?

With the hobby, I haven’t started collecting anything yet for stamps, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be focusing on something around Swahili stamps in East Africa because I lived there for 12 years, so it’s a very relevant thing for me. If there’s enough content, maybe something around recreational fishing because that’s one of my passions. Those two would likely be the areas that I will end up collecting.

In terms of the job, my first week was volunteer week. That was not actually an ideal week for me to start because I couldn’t spend any time with the staff. Everybody was occupied. Everybody was busy getting ready for the Great American Stamp Show. I had some meetings with the various division chiefs, met all the staff, one-on-ones and all that.

What I really look forward to doing is relocating. When I move up there, I really want to be able to sit down and spend half a day with each function. … I just want to do their job with them for half a day or a day, depending on how complex the job is.

I have to understand what we do and the services we provide before I can really make any kind of intelligent decisions.

To read the rest of Linn’s interview with Kirk Gillis, subscribe to Linn’s Stamp News.

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