The Other Guy

The Chief of Stress at Dowty was Barry Levoir and his next in command, by title only, was Jim Collins.

The one thing you found out about Jim quite quickly was that he did not suffer fools gladly, although in reality, few of us do. However, Jim would curtail conversations with idiots quickly, he would do little to hide his dislike of wafflers and at first impression seemed somewhat of a curmudgeon.

So I learned to talk to him...

The title that had been applied to him was of Stress Office Manager, but it was Jims passionate goal to never manage anything, not because of being lazy, but more from a disinterest point of view. In addition, the Chief of Stress was the policy maker and Jim did everything he could to keep it that way.

I would have long conversations with Jim, often with the pretense of talking about structures theory, an open book in front of us as we chatted about everything and it's dog, it was apparent that something important clicked between the two of us and although Jim was older than my father, he became a lifelong friend.