James G. Randolph
Major General James Glenn Randolph (USAF Ret.), of Bethesda, MD, passed away on January 3rd, 2021 at the age of 90 following a long battle with Lewy Body Dementia. Jim was born on January 20th, 1930 in Cleveland, Bradley County, TN, first child to James Franklin Randolph and Mary Bennett Chambers Randolph, a dairy farmer and a rural school teacher and administrator.
He attended Bradley County Central High School, graduating in 1947 and enlisting in the Air Force in 1948. After rising to the rank of staff sergeant, he was selected by competitive examination in 1951 to attend Officer Candidate School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX and was a distinguished graduate, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in December 1951. He completed pilot training in July 1953 and was a command pilot.
In August 1958, he married Nancy Jo Elrod of Montgomery, AL, mother of his four children: Jim, Charlie and Glenn Thomas Randolph and Marilyn Randolph Tobin. She died of cancer in January 1971.
Jim served overseas in Korea (a 12-month tour of combat duty in the Korean War), Japan, Germany and the Republic of Vietnam. From 1960 to his retirement as a major general in April 1976, his career path was through the Air Force Logistics Command and included postings at Bitburg Air Base, Germany; Air Force Headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH; Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX and Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, OK. In 1972, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, being the youngest general officer serving in the Air Force. He finished his Air Force career as the commander of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base. His military decorations and awards include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and Air Force Commendation Medal. While serving in the Air Force, Jim received a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and is a graduate of the advanced business management program of Harvard Business School. He is also a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College (1964) at Ft. Leavenworth, KS and the National War College (1968) at Ft. McNair, Washington, DC.
Jim married Henrietta Kleinpell of Flushing, MI in May 1973 at the base chapel at Kelly Air Force Base just prior to the assignment to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. After 39 years of marriage, she died quietly at their home in Bethesda, MD in June 2012 of Myelofibrosis.
After retiring from the Air Force, he and Henrietta made Oklahoma City home as he became president of Kerr-McGee Coal Corporation from 1976 to 1989, guiding the newly-formed company through its formative stages of mine development, coal marketing and production. In 1984, he also took on the responsibilities for Kerr-McGee Corporation’s uranium mining, milling and conversion business before retiring again in January 1989.
Jim left retirement again when in November 1991 he was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Fuel at the US Department of Energy in which he would oversee the federal government’s progress in advanced coal, oil and natural gas technologies. He was responsible as well for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Naval Petroleum Reserve and for the federal government’s authorization of imports and exports of natural gas and the export of electricity. As this was a political appointment, he left this position (as dictated by custom) in January 1993 when President William Clinton was sworn into office.
As a consequence of the appointment to the DOE, Jim and Henrietta moved to Washington, DC in 1991 and made the Washington area their home for the next 30 years. In 1996, they completed building a second home on the shore of Lake Charlevoix in Charlevoix, MI and they split their residency between Charlevoix and the Washington area thereafter.
After leaving the Department of Energy in 1993, Jim traveled and worked extensively in Russia and Kazakhstan under US Department of Commerce initiatives to bring modern mining technology and processes to these former Soviet countries. He developed a love of Russia, and with Henrietta, lead winter trips for friends and family over New Year’s for six years in a row to the palaces, churches and museums of St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia from 2002 to 2007.
He is survived by his sister, JoAnne Randolph of Signal Mountain, TN, his four children, ten grandchildren, and nieces and nephews. He also is survived by his two devoted caregivers for the last eight years of his life, Fatou Jobarteh and Alhassan Rahim. Visitation will take place at Swartz Funeral Home in Flint, MI on February 13th at 11:30am and he will be buried in a private ceremony at Glenwood Cemetery next to Henrietta. A celebratory memorial of his rich life will be held in Fall 2021 in Washington, DC. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the American Brain Foundation (www.americanbrainfoundation.org
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