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Places lived:
Seattle WA, San Francisco CA, Bellevue, WA, Dallas TX, Alpharetta GA
College:
University of Washington Seattle, WA undergrad and grad school in
Business
Volunteer Jobs:
President Dixie Youth Baseball 2 years, President Milton Booster Club for
all high school sports 2 years (raised $150,000 to renovate locker
rooms). Coached both sons in baseball from age 6 to 14 . My youngest son
Jeff, at age12, pitched in a Championship game and struck out 20 of 21 in
a 7 inning game and threw out the other batter and was one walk away from
a perfect game. He had his picture in “Faces In the Crowd” in Sports
Illustrated. I volunteer with my oldest son Jim to coach my grandson
Colton in baseball and basketball. His team has won the local middle
school Championship in basketball and baseball the past two years
Impact of Phillips:
It was such a family community. I feel that this instilled and molded the
family values that I believe are important in having the successful and
loving family that I have today. The death of Bobby Moore had an impact on
me. It showed how a community can come together and comfort one another
when there is an event like Bobby’s death, which cannot be explained or
understood (especially young high school students like myself). Trying to
understand how such an outstanding individual can be in a student council
meeting one day and then he is gone from one’s life forever. Bobby was
extremely kind to me as a Freshmen on the student council and I looked up
to him as one of PHS finest student/athletes.
Band and choir trips were a blast because the pressure was not the same as
the sports trips. Football games were fun to play but not the bus rides as
they were too serious. The Breckenridge game was special. We beat them on
their home field, even though they had won many championships. Ken Hunt
was a special player. When I saw him behind the defense, I threw the ball
as far as I could and he caught it for a 60 yard TD. We won 6-0. But on
the way home Joe Means was already getting us prepared for the next
game--no celebration.
Family: Married to Anita Mary Opdycke Gray for 46 years. Our older son is James
Bradley who is married to Erika. They have three children: Colton James,
11; Ava Claire (adopted at birth from family services in Atlanta), 5; Lily
Bells (adopted at birth from family services in Indianapolis IN as a
preemie weighing 2 lb. 12 oz. at birth) is 1 year old and now weighs 18
lbs. Jim has owned his own construction business for the past 10 years
and Erika owns a 300 child day care that has been rated as one of
Georgia’s best. Erika’s best friend is Sharon Jones, wife of Atlanta
Braves player Chipper Jones, so every once in a while I get tickets to see
the Braves play on Chippers dime. My younger son is Jeffrey Bryan. He is
married to Michelle and they have one child, Hannah Elisabeth, age 7. Jeff
was the #1 Sales Man for Abbott Labs and now works for AstraZeneca Labs,
where he was the #1 sales rep last year. Michelle has been employed by
BB&T Bank for 7 years. |
Holes in One:
Martha said it was OK to brag, so here’s my story. I enjoyed golf,
but was never as good as Ray L. At Canon-Gate-On-Lanier in Cumming GA in
1979, I made a hole-in-one on the 17th hole--175 yards with a
5 iron. In 1982 we were on vacation and I made a hole-in-one at Indian
Bayou Golf Club in Destin, Florida on the 6th hole--170 yards
with the same 5 iron. The Paul Harvey moment is this: my youngest son Jeff
was playing with me in the same foursome both times I made those shots.
Therefore, I have the best eye witness in the world because he could never
lie about something like this to his mother. I can see this amazing
experience every day, as Anita had the two hole in one balls and score
cards mounted on plaques for my home office. I have not had any more
holes-in-one to date. Career: Centered around the finance industry, I started out with Wells Fargo in San Francisco as a banking officer,
then moved back to Seattle with Paccar Finance and financed Kenworth and
Peterbilt Trucks nationwide. Moved to Atlanta to open a branch for
Paccar, is how I came to Georgia. Looking for more of a challenge,
I left Paccar to work for GE Capital as a District Manager in their
Medical Division and was hired away by Citibank as a VP of Medical
Leasing, but CB wanted to move me to New Jersey to head up their Medical
Division (was not moving to NJ). SouthTrust Bank, a Birmingham AL bank, was a
new to Atlanta and I started their Leasing division in Atlanta and ran it
for 8 years before Wachovia Bank bought SouthTrust and Wachovia let all
finance groups go because Wachovia already had these divisions in place.
Then I was hired by Sun Data/Solarcom/Presidio who was a customer I
brought into SouthTrust bank and they offered me a job setting up their
Leasing division to finance the mid-range computers they sold worldwide. I was
at SDSP for 16 years before I retired and the finance group grew from 0 to
$200,000,000 in those 16 years. After I retired I had to learn not to
interrupt Anita’s routine, so several retired friends and I started a
recruiting firm 2 years ago (LenderRecruiting LLC) for the finance
industry and we have several recruiting jobs nationwide for
bankers, stockbrokers, leasing sales people, credit managers and business
development managers. This is a fun industry because I talk to recruits
from Florida to California and it is amazing how many young people are
looking for jobs but not qualified.
Anita’s professional career was 28 years as a teacher with Fulton County
schools. Kindergarten was new grade for Georgia and Anita was certified as
a K-4 teacher from the State of Washington. She was the first teacher
hired for K because she was certified and had taught K in Washington for a
year before we moved to Georgia. But the best thing going for Anita, she is now 11 years cancer free and
doing great and looks great after the Surgery, Radiation and Chemo. We are
truly blessed.
Above are pictures of Anita & Jack –Jim Erika Colton Ava Claire &
Lily Bella our oldest son and family –Hannah our youngest son Jeff &
Michelle
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