My friend

Howdy Tim,

Thanks you for your email about your father's death. We had already seen the obit in the Bryan Eagle. I served on an advisory committee to the Civil Engineering Department at TAMU the whole time Jim was the Department Head. I got to know Jim and Anna very well and considered Jim my friend. He provided outstanding leadership for the Department. His work and guidance to the students was always the best. He also worked hard to get the Engineering Profession evolved with the department He was a dedicated teacher. Jim was always a happy person and fostered the need for people to have a happy family. None of my grand children, I have 12, ever met Jim but they are all familiar with his paper animals. Every communication I ever had from Jim included several paper animals and as time went by, they got more and more complicated. He had a very good lecture on bridge construction, in which he used paper folded beams to illustrate structural design principles.

Jim was an outstanding Civil Engineer and I am a better person for having known him.

Dick Birdwell TAMU Class of '53.