When you’re in the business of driving Rose Parade floats, it’s crucial to pick the right crew.
For 50 years, Guy Roubian and Jack McGinley, true blue Pasadena boys, have exhibited a particular set of driving skills to drive 5.5 miles on New Year’s Day, accompanied by the cheers of hundreds of thousands. The two longtime friends have been at the wheel of Rose Parade floats for Disney, Jack in the Box and, for the past six years, the event’s main sponsor Honda.
But this year, McGinley, 72, of Claremont, is putting the brakes on their New Year’s Even tradition, saying it’s just time.
“I’ll miss seeing the excitement on the crowd’s faces as we drive by and I’ve enjoyed working with Guy all these years,” the transportation training consultant said.
Roubian, 72, of Ontario, first met McGinley as seventh-graders at Marshall Fundamental School in Pasadena. They bonded over a shared love of cars, and went on attend Pasadena High School and Pasadena City College at the same time.
It was at the beginning of their careers, Roubian as a teacher at Walnut High School and McGinley as a manager at Union Pacific Railroad, that a friend recruited them to drive for Festival Artists, which later became AES, Artistic Entertainment Services in Azusa.
“We both said, ‘Let’s grab a float,’” Roubian said. “It’s a traditional thing to sleep on the street on New Year’s Eve to see the parade pass by, so we did it for the excitement of being part of something we grew up with. Being part of all that is just fun and exciting.”
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Then in their 20s, the friends launched a New Year’s tradition of their own. Through starting and raising families and establishing careers, for more than four decades, the two knew what they were doing New Year’s Eve: driving for different sponsors at the Rose Parade.
The job starts with a couple of test runs in Azusa, attended by Tournament of Roses members who check off on the float. It also includes a fire drill where the drivers need to get out, grab a fire extinguisher, run to the back of the float and turn off everything in 45 seconds. Then there’s the five-hour, cloaked-in-darkness drive from Azusa to Pasadena on Dec. 31, when Roubian and McGinley get to know the best of times (being part of an iconic tradition) and the not-so-good (smelly fumes, chilly weather.)
Tournament of Roses members try their best to make the 12-mile drive to Pasadena the night before the parade go smoothly, checking for overhanging trees or wires, low signs and street lights. And Roubian said they appreciate Honda and AES running professional crews to ensure they stay safe.
“(On Dec. 31) it’s turning a lot of corners, going down small streets with parked cars and traffic, and even with the police escort it’s a little tricky since we always do that at night,” Roubian said.
Once in Pasadena, the two set up folding chairs by their float and get little or no sleep. It’s always a long night.
The two note there is also the 12-mile “move back” after the floats are displayed for a couple of days post-parade in Pasadena. That drive has produced some “interesting issues,” McGinley said.
“But the parade itself has been pretty straightforward,” he added. “The hardest part about driving a float is just paying attention to the turns with the crowd, making sure you don’t go too far off the center line on the road.”
“It’s a way for Jack and I to get together, something we have fun doing,” Roubian said, noting they do go to concerts and Chargers games throughout the year too.
Roubian, one of the original teachers at Diamond Bar High (he taught auto shop), later went on to become a well-loved administrator, first as a principal at Upland High School before retiring in 2016 as director of human resources for Ontario-Montclair School District. McGinley still works in consulting after working for Union Pacific Railroad.
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The two friends both raised two children each and are now grandparents too. Their wives know they get to have a New Year’s Eve with their husbands every seven years.
“The only time we’ve got a New Year’s with our wives is when the parade when the falls on a Sunday and they don’t have the parade on Sundays,” Roubian said.
Otherwise, post-parade, Susan McGinley usually picks the two up at the AES facility in Azusa and drives to their Claremont home, where Kathy Roubian meets them for lunch. Sometimes, they’ll catch a football game before the weary drivers go to sleep.
Roubian said he has a few more years of driving floats in him. He is training up his daughter Megan and her husband Chris Young in the ways of float driving. The Youngs will be driving the U.S. Army float in their second Rose Parade.
“I admire both my dad and Jack because I’ve never once seen either of them panic, in any situation,” Megan Roubian Young said. “My dad is extremely funny and brings levity to tense situations and helps give us all perspective. His advice to me about driving floats is that it’s a pretty serious, potentially dangerous situation so treat it as such but also have fun.”
For these two driven friends, cruising down Colorado Boulevard in a flower-bedecked float weighing tens of thousands of pounds is just what floats their boat.
“It’s the perfect way to start the year,” Roubian said
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