Jim Shaeffer

Born in San Antonio, TX, moved at an early age to Alaska and growing up in South Dakota, instilled in Jim a great love of the outdoors. His grandfather and father spent many enjoyable hours with young Jim teaching him to love everything in nature. Entering the workforce after having taken every college computer course offered at South Dakota State University and Augustana College, Jim began his I/T career at Raven Industries in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as a programmer. He then joined UES/Spectrum where he spent most of his time travelling throughout the US installing Texas Instruments mini-computers at post-secondary, proprietary educational institutions. At age 25, Booth Newspapers, a chain of 8 newspaper publications located in Michigan outside of the Detroit area, hired Jim as a systems analyst, so Jim relocated to Michigan for the next 27 years. After 5 years with Booth Newspapers, Jim became the I/T director at Symplex Communications in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he worked for 3 years. He then founded JCS & Associates, Inc. in 1991 and has served as its CEO since then. Jim now lives in South Dakota, and enjoys spending time in the outdoors, travelling when he can to Michigan to spend time with his grown kids.