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Married with six adult children, my wife Janet and I reside in Bloomington, Minn. My life journey has traveled down two parallel tracks during the 50 years since college days — one in ministry and the other in music.

Track #1, Ministry: 
I graduated from McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago) and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, subsequently serving as pastor in rural upstate New York; in St. Croix Falls, Wis.; and as co-pastor with my wife, Rev. Janet Shannon, in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. I also served as an interim pastor in Medalia and Shakopee, Minn.  The above pastorates also included service on various Presbytery, Synod and community boards, committees, councils and agencies.

Early in his ministry, I was called to active duty in the Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy, where I subsequently served, over a 20 year career, assignments to eight navy ships, Seabees (two deployments in South Vietnam), plus shore duty in Newport, R.I.; Washington, D.C.; Bermuda; graduate school at Princeton, N.J.; Norfolk, Va.; Detroit, Mich.; plus brief postings elsewhere. Among my 10 military decorations is the Republic of South Vietnam Medal of Honor, First Class.

Following his military chaplaincy, I returned to Minnesota serving interim pastorates and ministering as a long-term care chaplain at four nursing homes in Bloomington, Edina, Minneapolis and Waconia.

Now, officially retired from the U.S. Navy, and “Honorably Retired” from Presbyterian Ministry, Jim is now down to full-time involvement in music.  Now to Track #2…

Track #2, Music:
After working my way through college doing music, musical activities have blended with my clergy track. During my Navy years I was selected by the Navy Chief of Chaplains to become the Navy’s Protestant member of Army-Navy-Air Force committee to create a new hymnal for the military. The Book of Worship for U.S. Forces took five years to produce, was published in 1973, and is yet in use in U.S. Military and VA chapels worldwide. While working in the Pentagon, I was periodically invited to lead services and preach at the “Pentagon Pulpit.”

Since our college years, I have served as organist for two churches in Chicago, plus as a staff organist for a 3,000-room Chicago hotel, and also as organist and choral director for a church in New Jersey. I have entertained with musical programs in 16 countries and in 19 U.S. states.  As a pianist I have appeared in Minnesota at hundreds of locations including churches, theaters, hotels, nursing homes, the U. of M., parks, amphitheaters, senior apartments, country clubs, private estates, fairs and festivals including six solo shows at the Minnesota State Fair in 2007 (returning again in 2008). As the musical clown, “Professor Piano,” I have offered educational shows for young children in schools, churches and parks. Every summer since 1991, Jim has been the “strolling piano” at Centennial Lakes Park in Edina. I’ve served as organist/pianist at Presbyterian churches in Eden Prairie, Plymouth and Maple Plain, Minn., and teaches piano at the Minnesota Valley School of Music in Richfield, Minn. One of my two master’s degrees reflects my specialty in church music and liturgy. I am a member of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the American Federation of Musicians, the National Piano Teacher’s Guild and the Hymn Society of the U.S.