Phil and Barbara James
Life Summary
First the bones...
1932
Born:
Boston, Mass; Detroit, Michigan
1954
SB, Chemistry,
MIT
BA, Political
Science, Wellesley
Married
1957
PNJ: Ph. D., Organic Chemistry, University of
Illinois, Urbana
BLJ: proofread children’s
encyclopedic anthology entitled “Our Wonderful World;”
one year
toward MA, Social Work
1957-1959
PNJ: University of California, Berkeley:
Assistant Professor
BLJ: Berkeley Red Cross: Head of Volunteers
1959-1962
PNJ: American Cyanamid Company: chemist at
Lederle, then
college
recruiter out of the Rockefeller Center headquarters office
1962
Michael
Gregory James (Greg) born
1962-1966
San Fernando
Valley years:
PNJ: Technicolor Corporation, Hollywood:
research chemist,
then Special
Assistant to the Vice President for Research
BLJ: graduate work in Political Science
1964
Lawrence Law
James (Larry) born
1966-1974
San Diego
years:
PNJ: University of California, San Diego (UCSD):
Assistant Vice Chancellor -- Graduate Studies and Research,
then Executive
Assistant to Chancellors William J. McGill (later President of Columbia
University),
Herbert F.
York (first Director of Defense Research and Engineering under JFK and
LBJ),
and William
McElroy (earlier Director of the NationalScience Foundation)
BLJ: President of Oceanids (faculty and staff women of
UCSD); began work toward
Master in
Public Administration
1974-1977
PNJ: University of Southern California:
Director, Idyllwild Campus
1977
BLJ: M. P. A., San Diego State University
Thesis:
“Administrative Challenges of a Developing Campus”
1977-1988
Beverly Hills
years:
PNJ: Deluxe General (subsidiary of 20th
Century-Fox): Director of Administration and Planning;
Northrop Data
Processing: Director of Strategy Planning; County of Los
Angeles:
Chief,
Strategic Information Systems Planning
1979-1981
BLJ: President, League of Women Voters of Beverly
Hills
1983
MGJ: BA Brown University
1985
MGJ: Married Susan Appleby in Wellesley College chapel
1986
LLJ: BA Brown University
MGJ: Christopher Gregory James born
1987
BLJ: J. D., Loyola Law School
Barbara’s
mother died three days after Barbara had taken Bar examination
1988-1997
Hollywood and
Northridge years:
1988-1997
PNJ: California State University, Long Beach:
Faculty member in
Information
Systems and Strategic Management; consultant
for
Department of
Health Services, Los Angeles County
BLJ: practicing attorney
1988
MGJ: PhD, Computer Science, UC Irvine
1989
MGJ: Jillian Susan James born
1994
Northridge
earthquake: epicenter 3 miles from our house
1997-1999
Both: Retired; full time RVing
1999-
Both: Settled in Claremont, California;
community activism and RV travel
2005
Both: Moved to Sun City, Arizona
_________________________________________
Now
the meat...
We’ve always loved to
travel. That’s probably our first passion. During graduate
school we saw 48 states while there still were 48 and before we were
25. Since then we’ve seen Alaska and Hawaii and all of the
provinces of Canada while the boys were growing up, plus a “freshman
course” trip to Europe (British Isles and northwestern France) in
1993. Our second tour around North America (in our motor home)
was especially exciting and fun. We hated to “settle down,” but
our consciences called us to a less hedonistic lifestyle.
Nonetheless, we still travel as often as we can; in the fall of
2002 we traveled to 35 states, picking up #47, #48, and #49 that we
will have visited in our motor home leaving only #50, for which we have
to wait for the bridge to be built. And we’ve had a long motor
home trip each year since then.
I love the mountains and have
backpacked along many Sierra Nevada trails including two trips to the
summit of Mount Whitney (one in a thunder snowstorm in August!).
Barbara loves history, politics, our roses and the seashore.
We’ve visited beautiful gardens in many states and Canada, Civil War
battlefields, etc., and read all the plaques (just ask our
kids!). One appeal of the academic life has been the long
vacations, which we’ve utilized to the fullest.
We also like to eat (some of our
friends will remember...) and have enjoyed many fine and famous
establishments everywhere we’ve been.
One fun set of events stands out
in our recent history: our fraternity mini-reunions at Hilton
Head (1998), San Francisco (2000), Phoenix (2003), Estes Park (2005),
and planned for Fredericksburg, Virginia in 2007.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
I’ve had many successes and many
frustrations. I always wanted a public service career,
particularly in an environment that encouraged thoughtfulness,
reflection, creativity and discussion rather than productivity, and
service to those less fortunate rather than profit. I’ve been
lucky enough to have had that for about half of my career -- in
teaching, research and government. But despite many high points
in those areas, I’ve also had good years in industry. I’ve never
felt I achieved what I should have, but taking my career all together,
“it floats,” in the words of a famous Methodist minister, Ralph W.
Sockman.
The most exciting career
experience for me was at UC San Diego. It was heady stuff working
with Nobel Prize winners, UC faculty and executives, community leaders,
and Regents in the tumultuous 1960s and ‘70s as we were developing UCSD
to be a world class institution. And it’s the only job I’ve had
where I felt that the whole Phil James was being effectively used and
that I made a significant contribution to the evolution of the
institution and the community which housed it.
Since then I’ve basically enjoyed
each new opportunity, but there have been some un-pleasant periods and
some unpleasant work situations. And, I’ve often felt that I had
to suppress parts of me that were in conflict with the organization in
question -- my bleeding heart liberal leanings, for example, when I was
working with senior corporate executives. By venturing beyond
academia I became involved in whole new areas of technology, which I
loved. For a while I was considered a “thought leader” in office
automation in Los Angeles, which brought many heady experiences.
Socially, life in Beverly Hills,
Hollywood and the movie industry was exhilarating. It was a
thrill to dine with Virginia Mayo (an idol during my teens) at one of
the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Awards events (the
one for Bette Davis) while I was at 20th Century-Fox! That was
right up there with Debbie Reynolds’ visit to ___ in 1954; also a
thrill! We’ve met her several times since while living in Beverly
Hills.
But perhaps the job that was the
most sheer fun for me was the two years I spent college recruiting with
American Cyanamid in 1961-62. There was the traveling, of course
(and I could often include Barbara), plus the interaction with the best
and brightest faculty and students all over the country. I felt
most abreast of chemistry during that period too, partly because of the
discussions with students and faculty and partly because the commuting
and traveling gave me many hours to study the literature. We
hated to leave New York City and our Lederle/Cyanamid associates, but
since we now had a child it was time to put down roots, and California
was irresistible.
FAMILY
Barbara was a housewife for much
of my career -- but an active one in the community. In San Diego,
in addition to Oceanids, she was on the Board of the YWCA, and there,
too, in 1968, a few months before Martin Luther King’s assassination,
with many others we co-founded Citizens United for Racial Equality
(CURE), a local activist group that continues today. We were also
active there at the beginning of Common Cause, headed in San Diego by
Mike Walsh, who had been a White House fellow for John Gardner when he
was Secretary of HEW. Mike later became CEO of Tenneco, but died
of a brain tumor not too many years later.
In Beverly Hills, while Barbara
was President of the League of Women Voters, there was a significant
fight with the City of Beverly Hills over a land deal. Her
predecessor as president was sued by a city councilman for $6 million
and by a developer for $45 million. Our son, then at Brown (which
was already destroying us financially) commented, “That would have set
us back a bit!” Barbara’s fight with the city led her at last to
her law career, predicted much earlier by aptitude tests in high
school, which she continued until we retired. She found
practicing “LA” law (primarily family law) frustrating and
difficult. She began her odyssey with Gloria Allred, later worked
on a Howard Hughes case, and had other interesting experiences
throughout that period.
Both of our boys went to Brown for
undergraduate work. Greg, now 44, worked for Data General in the
Boston area for about three years, then got married (to Susan -- 13
years his senior!), had 2 kids and began graduate school at UC Irvine,
where he got his PhD in computer science. Susan got an MBA and
began work toward a PhD in human resource management. He’s been
at American Express first in Houston and now in Phoenix for nearly ten
years, where he directs worldwide data reporting for customers
who use the Corporate Card. Those tiny kids are now 16 (Jillian)
and 19 (Christopher, now a sophomore at the University of
Arizona). He and Susan divorced in 2003; we are still close
with all of them.
Larry, 42, learned the movie
business at Beverly Hills High School where he and Nick Cage both won
“Academy Awards” for an original film Larry created which starred
Nick. He’s now a free-lance editor, producer, and director in
Hollywood working primarily on TV episodes for the History and
Discovery Channels. This gives him periods of free time which he
loves. A few years ago he was associate editor for “Adaptations,”
starring Nick Cage and Meryl Streep. He’s still single but has
many girlfriends, owns a house and five acres of land in the desert
above Los Angeles near Mt. Baldy, and is building his own motor
home. (None of this pre-fab stuff for him!) A few years ago
he did a documentary on “Ghost Towns in Death Valley” which premiered
at the Gene Autry Museum of Western History and is for sale in the gift
shop at Furnace Creek. He’s particularly interested in doing his
own documentaries and is heading in that direction.
THE PRESENT
We are enamored of
retirement! Our typical day begins about 10 A. M. and runs well
past midnight. We love being in the West, we love our home, and
we love the freedom to travel as the spirit moves. We moved to
Arizona in 2005 and are already way too involved, Phil especially so in
efforts to fix election technology problems.
LIFE’S HIGHLIGHTS
∑ A wonderful
life partner who kept me on track time after time along this
wandering pathway.
∑ Opportunities
to know personally some of the greatest thinkers of our time.
∑ Learning to
love being alone for several days in the high mountain wilderness of
California.
∑ Learning to
endure -- indeed, to enjoy -- the physical effort required to
reach that wilderness.
∑ Progeny with
diverse approaches to carrying forward our values.
∑ The
opportunity to see as much of North America as we have -- as often as we
have. ...and a little of
Europe as well.
LESSONS LEARNED -- SOME TOO LATE –
TO BE PASSED ON TO THE NEXT
GENERATION!
∑ Learn how to
read your environment accurately as it evolves and to re-invent
yourself as often as necessary in
order to evolve with it.
∑ Avoid excesses
in modesty and arrogance, but know how to sell yourself and
how to network.
∑ Live life in
all three boxes all the time: learning, work, and leisure.
∑ Don’t put off
what you want too long -- you never know when delayed may be-
come denied. (...and my
favorite quote: “Live your dream! Life is not a dress
rehearsal!”)
∑ Make a
positive contribution to the common good, helping those who have so
much less to improve their lives.
∑ Be honest
enough to be grateful, and grateful enough to be useful. Most of
us
have been born so lucky!
