Our Tour Guides

Ray – Co-Owner/ Tour Guide

Ray’s our most experienced guide, who comes to us with a wealth of tours and guide experiences from years of creating and giving tours across the country. He’s created and delivered coastal cruises, harbor tours and the first publicly presented whale watching tours in Southern California. On moving to history-rich Richmond with his wife over ten years ago, he learned a number of locally-based tours and presented them for public and private tours. Ray said, “I don’t think there’s any more historic or interesting city in the country. Between downtown’s VCU campus and Church Hill’s Libby Overlook, there are 100’s of stories waiting to be told.”

Jeff – Co-Owner/ Tour Guide

Jeff loves researching, teaching and talking about history and he’s been doing it most of his life. After studying history at Georgetown and the University of Chicago, he launched his nearly 40-year career teaching history as a college professor and secondary school educator, and was named the Princeton University Distinguished Teacher of the Year. He’s lived all over the U.S. and Europe, speaks three languages and specializes in the history of food and intellectual thought (ask him about the best places to eat in Richmond!) Jeff adopted Richmond and its rich past after he retired here to live in a renovated rowhouse in the Fan with his wife and English bulldog.

Kathy – Tour Guide

Kathy came onboard and began guiding with us in 2021.  She is a native Richmonder  who has experienced the dramatic growth and changes in the city during her lifetime She is a “graduate” of the Valentine Richmond History Center “Guide School,” class of 2014, a combination of  history and hands-on learning that readies one to confidently present tours in our  history  rich city. Kathy brings a local’s perspective and personal stories only a life long Richmonder could tell.

Erin – Tour Guide

Erin hails from Northern Virginia and graduated cum laude from VCU with a double major in cinema and history. She joined The Richmond Tour Guys in 2023 to expand upon her knowledge of the rich history of Richmond and enjoys learning about the many neighborhoods. Each area holds a unique part of Richmond’s 400-year history which Erin is eager to lead her guests, point-to-point describing in story some of the many facets of the River City.

Jason – Tour Guide

Jason was a history major with specialties in American and German history. His has lived in and watched Richmond transform into hip RVA over the last 27 years. During that time, he has started several successful local businesses and continued to feed his passion for Richmond and Virginia history. A gifted story raconteur with an eye for the quirky, he firmly believes in the adage “you can’t make this stuff up.”

Doug – Tour Guide

A native of Morristown, NJ, Doug grew up in that historic area and developed a fascination with the American saga. Since moving to Richmond in the early 80s, that interest expanded during his nearly 10 year residency on Church Hill.

Doug joined the “Tour Guys” in 2023 to continue guiding groups in Richmond’s neighborhoods. Additionally, Doug has conducted tours for the Valentine Museum since 2011 and does volunteer work for the National Park Service, both in Richmond and in Arlington, Va.

Professionally, Doug served on the music faculty at Midlothian High School in Chesterfield County for 28 years before retiring in 2009. As a cellist he has performed with several music ensembles over the years and has worked as an extra for several period films that were shot in several Richmond locations.