Jim Collom ’61 has traveled all over the planet as a forester and an educator. He went to Brazil and started a forestry school from scratch. Later on in life, he became a college administrator who worked on international education projects in West Africa, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Yemen and many other countries.
And although he earned a doctorate from Purdue University and a master’s from the University of Maine, Collom credits Paul Smith’s College for his success.
“From my first days at Paul Smith’s, it was apparent that we were preparing for a career,” Collom says. “We weren’t just studying because college seemed like the thing to do. We were preparing for serious business.”
Rutgers University and the University of New Brunswick also accepted Collom. But he chose Paul Smith’s because he was interested in forestry, and he knew the class sizes were smaller, which meant lots of personal attention. It also meant lots of hands on experience. He worked in tree farms, harvesting and planting Christmas trees, did tree removal in Saranac Lake and applied what he was learning in the classroom with all of that real-world experience.
“I lived in dorm three, which was also the stage-coach storage area,” Collom says. “It was kind of crude but also comfortable, and it prepared me to live in much cruder places later in life.”
In 1965, Purdue University sent him to Brazil to create a new forestry school at the Federal University of Vicosa. He learned Portuguese and taught his students in their native tongue. He stayed there for a year and a half and then went back to teach forestry at Purdue University, where he used the same hands-on approach that he learned at Paul Smith’s.
“I took them out in the woods, which was unheard of at the time,” Collom says. “I had them measure trees and identify them. I required them to identify different habitats. Before that, students learned strictly in the classroom. But I was committed to making sure students were preparing for real work, just like Paul Smith’s did for me.”
Collom went back to Brazil in 1969 and spent four and half years strengthening the existing curriculum and creating a master’s program. It later became one of the best agricultural and forestry schools in the country. He also helped create a forestry research foundation and worked with private companies that supported graduate students and their research.
In 1974, he went back to Purdue and became an administrator who worked on international education projects. He managed Brazilian students who would later go back to their country to teach and do research. He also managed similar projects in West Africa.
In 1986, Collom changed roles once again, moving on to the Consortium for International Development in Tucson, Ariz., where he traveled to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Yemen and other countries, overseeing projects that allowed farmers to increase their production, manage crops, store grains and handle irrigation.
He also helped develop new business for the consortium throughout the world and went on to do the same for the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and the University of North Florida.
Collom currently does consulting work out of his home in Arizona, but he still travels back to Paul Smith’s where the seeds to his successful career were sown.
In fact, his career isn’t the only thing that originated here. Collom has been married for 53 years, and he never would have met his wife, who hails from Lake Placid, had it not been for the college.
“She gave me a permanent tie to the Adirondacks, and I often return to visit my in-laws,” he says. That tie is now shared with a son who lives in Glens Falls.