Jim had a free-range childhood in a small Ohio River town in West Virginia. He devoured library books and explored the hills and riverbanks, looking for adventures like Tom Sawyer.

He followed the river south to the Marshall University School of Journalism, where he developed his distinct, clear writing style. He interned at the West Virginia State Capitol, reporting on legislative issues and ghost writing newspaper columns for two high-ranking senators. As the editor of the student newspaper, he sought to entertain and inform the campus while covering the arrival of a new president and the opening of a football stadium. While taking a literature course, Jim met a brilliant graphic design student named Kelly Carnahan.

After graduating, Jim traveled through the mountains to Asheville, NC, and a copyediting job at the daily newspaper. He honed the precision of his editing against a nightly deadline. He got to know the topics important to the people of Western North Carolina so he could present the news in ways that were relevant and useful.

Jim then moved to Albuquerque and graduate school at the University of New Mexico. At UNM, he studied intercultural communication and learned about the flow of information from Everett Rogers, author of Diffusion of Innovations. He researched media bias and the influence of mass communication on local elections while also experiencing the traditions of the desert Southwest and refining his recipe for green chile stew. He joined a student delegation as a guest of the German government and interned at Deutschland Magazine.

A Honda Civic, packed to the ceiling, brought him to the rolling hills of Bloomington, IN, where he became managing editor of the Association of College Unions International. At ACUI, he worked with Kelly to produce a bimonthly magazine and other print and electronic publications to serve an international membership of student affairs professionals and students. His article about the benefits and risks of on-campus pubs won an American Society of Association Executives Gold Circle Award for feature writing.

Around the turn of the millennium, Jim joined an education startup that was building an online MBA program. That role taught him a lot about user experience and how to explain complicated concepts to learners at various levels. After the dot-com bust and a layoff, he and his colleagues started a new company, where he worked closely with corporate clients to uncover and solve key business problems with online instruction. Some of his courses won major training industry awards for such companies as Microsoft, Pfizer, Prudential, and General Motors.

In 2024, Jim and Kelly founded Write Design Group LLC to help clients achieve their marketing and communication goals.

Jim lives in Bloomington with his wife, Annie, and daughter, Liliana. He enjoys hiking, cooking, gardening, and making original music as part of songwriting duo The Monon Troubadours, rock band The Hungarian Slacks, and Latin-fusion band Matixando.