Jim was born in the late 1940s in Watertown Massachusetts. He served in the United States Air Force for eight years as a crew chief on F-4 Aircraft. In 1968, he was assigned to a base in South Korea to assist in the recovery of the USS Pueblo and its crew, a ship that had been captured by North Korea. The crew was eventually released just before Christmas of 1968, but the USS Pueblo still remains in North Korea and is the second oldest ship still commissioned in the Navy. Currently a Florida resident, Jim is Chief Visionary Officer for the Jim Russell Group and an Automotive Dealer Consultant.