Jim Woodbrey, Retired Scientist and Businessman

Jim Woodbrey, a retired chemical physicist and businessman, is Gabrielle Giffords’ supporter of the week. Jim sees Gabrielle as an agent of change. “We’ve got to have a change in this country, he said. “She’s focused and fair, caring and friendly. She has great integrity.”

Jim was born in raised in the small town of Sebago Lake, Maine. He and his family — his six brothers, three sisters, and parents — lived largely off the land, particularly during the austere times of World War II. “We had two hogs, three cows, and 100 chickens,” Jim said, adding that he milked the cows every day he was in high school.

Their house was attached to the car dealership their family owned. “I was born and brought up with grease under my fingernails,” he said. Before each of his siblings went off to college they traditionally went out to the family dealership’s junk yard, pulled out a used car, and rebuilt it. “I resuscitated a burned out ‘38 Dodge” to take to the University of Maine, he said.

In college, Jim studied chemistry, and met his future wife, Connie. He married her soon after they graduated, and they had their first child when they were in graduate school at Michigan State.

Jim and Connie finished grad school and moved to suburban Washington, D.C. in 1960, where he embarked on his career as a chemical physicist. That same year, he also became a Democrat. He changed parties because of his dismay at the angry sentiment expressed against John F. Kennedy’s religion when he ran for President. Kennedy “was fresh and dynamic,” Jim said. “He had the right ideas.”

In 1962, he and his family moved to Springfield, Mass., where he helped with the first campaign of Ted Kennedy. In 1965, they moved to St. Louis, where his family would spend the next thirty-four years. In that time, he worked on the campaigns of Stuart Symington in 1970, and Dick Gephardt, when he first ran for Congress in 1976.

In 1984, he founded Aspect Systems. Jim has 20 science publications and over 75 patents on his inventions. In 1999, after selling off Aspect Systems, he moved to Green Valley.

Jim first heard about Gabrielle Giffords when she first ran for office in 2000. He was also a member of Nucleus Club when she was the President of that group. “I liked her record,” Jim said, “but the thing that triggered it for me was the amount of dedication her friends have for her, and what her former employees say about her — she’s focused and fair, caring and friendly. She has great integrity.”

During the campaign, Jim has distinguished himself in many ways — notably by organizing the collection of more than 1,000 petition signatures from Green Valley.