Jim is a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Earth and Environmental Science, State University of New York, College at Plattsburgh. He has been involved with educational and natural resources work on the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain for over fifty years. Among his many current and past commitments to the local community, he currently serves as a Trustee, Paul Smith’s College; as a Director, Adirondack Research Consortium; as a Director Ex Officio (as a co-founder and first Board Chair), Adirondack Land Trust; as a Director, Protect the Adirondacks and as a member of the Advisory Board, Adirondack Park Institute. He also serves on the NYSDEC Lands and Forests Forest Preserve Advisory Committee;  on the Lake Champlain Management Conference New York Citizens’ Advisory Committee and on the NYS Geological Mapping Advisory Committee He is a widower who lives in Plattsburgh, NY where he enjoys classical music and opera (mostly on CD), and  reading Victorian novels and history. Jim is was born and raised in Toronto, Canada; earned BA (1965) and MS (1967) degrees in geology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a PhD in geology, with minors in geophysics and oceanography, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1970).