Martin Brescoach

Martin Brescoach, also know as the sign guy, didn’t have art training when he was young. He studied auto mechanics in high school and also would race Go Carts with his dad. He took an art class in high school and decided he had a knack for it. He liked to draw cartoon characters from magazines like, “Cracked and Mad”. In 1982, through his connections with racing, he acquired a job with a local sign company and that was the start of his career in the sign business.

Martin started off training in hand lettering for the first ten years, when computers came out; the need for hand lettering became a lost art. Martin worked for this sign company on and off for 12 years. In 1994, he decided to open his own business.

In 2015, Martin was approached by Phil Stanley with Cabell Huntington Hospital, who asked him to be a part of the Tri-State Artisans Express project. As first, he was reluctant to accept this job, because he is a sign guy not an artist (artist starve, he said, hence the starving artist). Martin then agreed. Phil had an idea for the train. Back in 1970, Marshall Football team was on their way home from a game when the plane went down.

In memory of this event, Phil came to Martin with this idea. Phil brought him a rendering of his design and he gave Martin free reign of the train.

Martin’s wanted his train to have a heavy metal look about it and went with a steam punk theme. He incorporated a lot of polished metal (brass, bronze, copper, gold, and, aluminum) and named it the “Rolling Thunder”. He craved a bison’s head for the front of his train, like a battering ram. He spent many hours sanding on the train so he could get a smooth finish because he used an automotive paint to give a metallic shine.

Martin has sense received complements for his train, but his favorite compliment was from a man that was in school at Marshall when the plane crashed and he told Martin that the train was, “A very fitting memorial”. Martin is grateful to be part of the Tri- State Artisan Express project and he hopes that Cabell Children’s Hoops Hospital benefits from his contribution.