Eulogy by Jim's colleague, Bill Riddle

Hello – my name is Bill, and I’m an engineer at NIST. I worked with Jim for almost 20 years, and I would like to share with you some memories of my good friend.

In the many years that Jim and I worked together, we collaborated on several technical projects, but we also developed a very close personal relationship.

Jim was my closest friend at NIST, and he was also one of the closest friends of my life. Like most real relationships, though, we had our ups and downs, and sometimes after an argument, I would get so upset with him that I couldn’t talk to him for a whole day. But he would always initiate the first step to restore our relationship because for Jim, our friendship was more important than winning some argument.

On the surface, Jim was a very shy person who was usually uncomfortable with attention or fanfare. People often misunderstood this aspect of his personality, and because of that misunderstanding, Jim didn’t always seem approachable to others. But as is often the case with those who shun the spotlight, Jim had a deep desire to connect with people, even those who misunderstood or disagreed with him. Maybe it was because he came from such a large family, Jim always seemed happiest when everyone on our project was working together and helping each other, and he was generous beyond measure when time came to share credit for our work.

For me personally, my favorite moments with Jim were the times when we would take walks together during our lunch break, and discuss our thoughts and feelings about the stuff in our lives. During that time, I think I got to see a part of Jim that few outside his family ever saw. Throughout those years, the Jim I discovered was a deeply emotional man with a big dream, an amazingly creative imagination and a deep passion for experiencing the world we live in. Over time, I began to realize that deep down inside, Jim was really a philosopher who just happened to know a lot about physics.

Although he loved his work, without question, the most important thing in Jim’s life was his family and their welfare. In his role as father and caretaker, Jim assumed many responsibilities, but if he viewed any of them as a burden, then it was a burden he welcomed. It fascinated me to watch him deal with those challenges, because it was like watching a grandmaster chess player carefully planning his next move. For me, knowing why he was working so hard and with such care, it was deeply moving.

However, Jim’s ability to focus on the things important to him often left less time for other matters, such as his so-called fashion-sense. This was a slightly sensitive topic for Jim, and if I ever made a comment about one of his wardrobe malfunctions, he didn’t hesitate to start singing the “Married Man Blues.” For example, one day I had been giving him a hard time about one of his “jackets” which honestly, looked like he had taken it from a hobo who had been sleeping in it for 2 months. He got very defensive, and he said to me: “Look Bill, you just don’t understand – I can’t buy any new clothes. In the family hierarchy, the kids come first, then the wife, then the dog, and the husband is last.” To which I replied: “Jim, that’s just crazy – I’m pretty sure the cat comes after the dog.”

Jim’s concern for the welfare of others clearly extended to those of us who worked closely with him. I know for me personally, he was always pushing me to work harder, to do better, and to set my goals higher – and I have no illusions about how much his support directly benefited my career.

So for me, there seem to be two very distinct sides to Jim. On the one hand, there was the devoted and hardworking husband and father, who obviously loved and cared for his family very much. But there was also the deep-thinking philosopher who possessed formidable technical skills that could be brought to bear on extremely difficult scientific problems.

Among those scientific problems, Jim had a deep love for the field of statistical mechanics, which uses probability theory to study the thermodynamic behavior of large populations of particles. It was Jim’s long term goal to apply those principles to human populations in order to possibly help humanity find answers to the problems we face. This was his great dream.

And perhaps now, I can see how the two aspects of Jim’s personality - the philosopher/scientist and the devoted father - came together in this dream. Because even in the often impersonal world of science, Jim was still trying to find a way to bring people together in a way that would help us to collectively solve our problems. It was a big dream, but Jim didn’t have small dreams.

In closing, I would like to share with you one more story. A couple of years ago, I stopped by Jim’s office to discuss some things, and he was noticeably upset and sounding somewhat discouraged. Trying to think of something helpful to say, I suggested that he recall his time in grad school, when he had to dig deep in order to push through his exams and write his thesis. Jim looked up at me and said that he only made it through school because of Karen and her support, and he was certain that he would not have finished his degree without her.

And I’m certain that I would not have gone as far in my career and in my life without my dear friend Jimmy.