James John died Nov. 28, 2010, at his home in Medina, Ohio. He was 77.
Born Nov. 6, 1933, in Montreal to Richard and Gwendolyn John, Jim graduated from New Rochelle (N.Y.) High School. At Princeton he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering, and then earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. He spent his career in engineering education, becoming president of Kettering University in Flint, Mich., after serving as chairman of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Toledo and Ohio State, and as dean of engineering at the University of Massachusetts.
Extremely successful in all of these positions, Jim believed one of his proudest achievements to be the creation, with his wife, of the Connie and Jim John Student Recreation Center at Kettering.
Author of many popular engineering texts, Jim spent much of his free time on the golf course and loved to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Detroit Tigers. With his children and grandchildren, he traveled to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Preceded in death by Connie, his wife of 41 years, Jim is survived by his daughters, Elizabeth Kousis and Connie Gardner; sons James and Thomas; his brother, Richard John; and grandchildren Abby, Tyler, Gwen, Andrew, Collin, Christopher, and Madison.