Jim was born in 1943 in Washington, DC where Jim's father worked for the State Department. He graduated from Bladensburg High School in 1961, attended a small West Virginia college called Alderson Broaddus College and the University of Maryland where he majored in Zoology with the hope of going into veternary medicine. This was during the height of the Vietnam war and Jim, like many of us were torn between serious study and anti-war activism. Needing a change in his situation Jim dropped out, moved to the northwest and spent a summer leading pack horses at Mount Rainier. Shelly joined him in Seattle at the end of that summer where they were married on Sept. 13, 1968.
Jim worked for several years in the printing business, including opening and running his own "Pelican Press" in Ballard. Jim seemed to like learning things. Even with his own business he decided to go back to school and change fields again. He sold his business, moved to Duvall and started studying again, this time in electronics. He completed an AA degree from Shoreline Community College in Electronic and Oceanographic Technology 1975. He first worked in the School of Oceanography at the UW before joining us in the Seismology lab that fall. Even then he continued to take courses from time to time in various subjects. Jim quickly became an important part of our technical staff. Starting as an ET-I, working under another technician it soon became obvious to me that he was over-qualified and more capable than this level and so was soon promoted through several advancements eventually becoming an Engineering Technician-III, the highest level available in our technical staff.
Jim was a critical component of our organization when in 1980, 25 years ago today, St. Helens woke up. With the first earthquake on March 20 the seismology lab was transformed from a small, sleepy research group to a center of information depended on by many for up-to-date data, interpretation and information. Due in no small part to Jim"s extra effort, thoughtful approaches, ingenuity and just dogged determination to make it work St. Helens was, at that time, the best seismically monitored volcanic eruption anywhere in the world. When things seemed to be falling apart, we didn"t have the right equipment, you couldn"t get there from here". Jim just made it work. We have counted on that type of "can do" results ever since then.
I think Jim really enjoyed working at the UW. It provided him with both a challenge and a stimulation to keep learning new things. Not everything was, of course great. He hated the commute and didn"t much like the task of supervising others. He loved his home in Duvall (which he built himself) and, in a perverse way, seemed to enjoy the problems we would hand him now and then. Even after his "so called" retirement a couple of years ago, Jim continued to contribute to our efforts, coming in part time to work on problems for which his experience or abilities were ideal. In fact, he was recently studying the ins and outs of some new digital IP radios to help with an experiment we are currently preparing. This part-time arrangement was , I think, an ideal situation for us both; he could hassle the commute at the times of his own choosing and we got the benefit of his help for the problems he was good at. I will miss that help, his (sometimes grumpy, sarcastic, and dry) comments, but most of all I will miss his friendship.
Jim is survived by his wife of over 35 years, Shellie; their children, Jason & Emma; his mother, Mary; sister-in-law Robin Clark, her husband John & daughter Tanya; and aunt and uncle, Rose & Frank; and preceded in death by his father, Rex
Jim loved traveling, photography, gardening, outdoor activities, "messing with Macs", and taking care of his "farm-retreat". He had loved fishing as a boy but hadn't done much until recently when we were in Florida and really enjoyed it once again. He also enjoyed canoeing and kayaking. He was very close to his children, and went across with Jason once to Missouri, and then once from Missouri with Emma stopping at National and State parks. When the children were small we took a lot of trips across the U.S. staying in campgrounds. Then we discovered Europe and went there whenever we could, with and without Jason and Emma. As you probably recall, he also did some work installing seismic arrays in Greece, Honduras, and in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
I remember many funny things that happened on our extended trip in 81, but can't recall staying in any caves (although we saw a lot of caves). Jim did take a leave of absence and did not quit. He was going to quit and the personnel office told him he could get up to 1 year leave of absence if his department agreed to it, which they did.
We first flew to Madrid and drove to Portugal, then all around Spain to Barcelona. In Barcelona we asked (in very poor Spanish) for the cheapest way to go to Greece (meaning a ferry or freighter). We were instead given train tickets going from Spain, through France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and on to Greece. It was a horrendous trip, since you had to reserve a berth in advance and they were all booked! We were on the train without a break until Venice. This meant the kids slept on us for a couple of nights in a compartment with eight people. We stopped for a couple of nights in Venice since Emma threw up all over the square! We then proceeded through Yugoslavia to Greece. However, in Yugoslavia the train stopped and all the foreign men were made to get out of the train by armed guards. It was still communist in those days and no one knew what would happen to us as Americans. Jim was pushed along with the others. No one spoke English and the children and I were not allowed to leave the train. Very scary, but after an hour all the men were brought back. It turned out that there was money that needed to be paid if you went through Yugoslavia, except Jim said that he and another American didn't have to pay, only the Europeans. Also, during this trip, gypsies came into our car and tried to get us to hide illegal Levi's. When we declined, they started putting on layer after layer of pants and stuck the others in the ceiling. Needless to stay the police caught them and hauled them off to jail! We then spent some time in Athens, and the islands of Naxos and Crete. On the way back, we took the ferry to Italy and spent some time traveling around there and eventually went back to Barcelona and headed back to the States.
When we returned to the States, we stayed with friends in Maine, New York State, and D.C. We even met a friend of a friend who let us stay in his house on the waterfront in Myrtle Beach, S.C. From there we visited family in Florida and headed for Missouri to visit Jim's mom. We ended up renting a house on a lake there for a couple of months and then returned home. We actually came home 4 months earlier than anticipated since the people we rented our house to lost their jobs and left. It was definitely an adventure with many more stories to be told about it. However, once we started traveling, we were addicted to it and took quite a few, although shorter, trips to Europe again.
Lots of memories! Shellie