he was appointed to West Point. He graduated from the US Military Academy in 1955,
commissioned in the Infantry. Jim had various assignments as an Infantry unit
commander and aide de camp; then the Army sent him to graduate school. He earned
an MA at the University of Pennsylvania in both English Language and English
Literature and spent the next 3 years teaching English and formal logic at West Point.
From there, he went to Korea and was on the Eighth Army Staff. From Korea, by then a
Major, he went to Vietnam, assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Division in the Central
Highlands as Personnel Officer for the 3rd Brigade of the Division (1st, 2nd, and 5th
Battalions of the 7th Cavalry). Soon, he was assigned as Executive Officer (2nd in
command) of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry and Deputy Commander of an
independent airmobile task force with the mission of tying down a North Vietnamese
force 5 times the task force’s size. The Task Force was awarded the Presidential Unit
Citation for that operation which is the equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross.
He was decorated 7 times for bravery and meritorious service in combat.
After that, he went to the Command and General Staff College and then as a Lt.
Colonel, to the office of the chief of personnel on the Army General Staff in the
Pentagon. There, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Jim retired from the Army in 1972 and went to work in his brother’s worldwide business
for a few years; after that he took over a small security guard agency in the
Washington, D.C. area. He built it up to about 300 guards and started an international
security consulting business. Along the way, he attended Harvard Business School,
completed an MBA from George Washington University and finished work for his Ph.D.
Jim served on the International Board of Governors of the USO (United Services
Organization) for 9 years and visited every USO facility in the United States and Europe
at his own expense.
He sold his company in 1987 but kept the international security consulting business
which he operated from his home town of Petersburg, Virginia. Most of his business
was in Western Europe and Japan. In 1993 he was elected President of The
International Association of Professional Security Consultants. The same year, Jim was
elected President of the Historic Petersburg Foundation and President of the Rotary
Club of Petersburg.
Jim authored a best practices publication on apprehending shoplifters, which was used
as a standard all over the country. Jim wrote articles on security in a variety of
publications, and was admitted as a forensic expert witness in both state and Federal
courts. He retired from business in 1997, spending most of his time on boards of notfor-
profit organizations such as the PAAL (Petersburg Area Art League). He was
awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of Rotary International.
As a cadet at West Point, Jim, with his beautiful Irish tenor voice, was soloist with the
West Point Glee Club and performed in Carnegie Hall multiple times, including in duo
with the opera singer Anna Moffo, on the Ed Sullivan Show, and in the Hollywood
movie, The Long Grey Line. An airplane pilot as a teenager, Jim was an avid sailor, a
cross country skier, and held a black belt in Tang Soo Do (a Korean martial art). He
spoke more than a dozen languages. His hobby was researching southern Virginia
history, a topic on which he gave many lectures.
In 2013, Jim moved with his wife Patricia Abbott-Ryan (deceased in 2015) to
Tallahassee, Florida, where his only child, Pamela Ryan, is the viola professor in the
College of Music at Florida State University.
In Tallahassee he continued his lifelong commitment to Rotary where he often led the
club in song, and organized food bagging teams for Second Harvest on Saturday
mornings. He sang in the choir at St. Peters Anglican Church and was an active
member of West Point support organizations.
Jim passed away, after 3 challenging months of hospitalizations, at Westminster Oaks
Bertrand Health Center on September 1, 2019. He is survived by his daughter Pam
Ryan, grandson Aziz Al-Doory, and cherished friend, Judy Roberts.
The family asks that you do not send flowers but if you would like to remember Jim,
please make a donation to Second Harvest of the Big Bend.
“Celebration of Life” Memorial will be on Friday, Sept. 13, at 2pm in the Maguire
Center, Westminster Oaks, Tallahassee, Florida.
Burial Ceremony will be on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 10am at the historic Blandford
Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.
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