Jim grew up in Overton County, attended Allons elementary school, and then graduated from Livingston Academy in 1962. At the time, he had no idea what engineers did, but he loved his math and physics classes, so that became the path he pursued.
After high school, Jim attended Tennessee Tech, majoring in electrical engineering. While attending Tech, he worked 2 years in Oak Ridge as a coop student and graduated with his BS in 1967. He then started his career at Lockheed Space Systems in Sunnyvale, CA as a satellite guidance and control engineer. While working, he attended Stanford University to get his MS in electrical engineering. He also took classes in aerospace engineering at Stanford and management at Santa Clara University.
Jim's early career was designing guidance and control for Agena upper stage boosters, and also for various reconnaissance satellites. One of these, the Gambit program has now been declassified, others remain classified. Gambit was a film-based system before digital imaging was available. This was an exciting time as the US was in a race with the USSR. Satellites were the primary means for gathering intelligence for the US.
After several years in the technical field, he started program management assignments. One was for the Hubble Space Program, built in Sunnyvale, Ca, launched in 1990 from Kennedy Space Center, and still functioning. After Hubble was launched and checked out, He managed the Lockheed portions of the International Space Station. This included some lab equipment, the rotary joints for the solar arrays and radiators, and the roughly one acre of solar arrays. After that he led the design and development of the first commercial imaging satellite, Ikonos, once a license was obtained from the government in 1984. This one lasted about 15 years on orbit. His final career was involved in various aspects of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS).
Jim retired in 2000 and still lives in California, about a mile from Apple headquarters. He just enjoys the retiree life, does some volunteer tutoring in math/physics/engineering, helps neighbors with filing taxes, and generally takes it easy.
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