James Wight Ainslie
March 31, 2022
Fort Worth, Texas - James was born October 10, 1933 as the only child of Catherine Luime of Brooklyn NY and David Ainslie of Edinburgh, Scotland. During his youth he was extremely active as a pitcher on numerous local baseball teams and as Master Councilor of the largest Order of DeMolay Chapter in NY state. Shortly after his father's death, James at the age of 17, was employed full time on the night shift of a major NY brokerage firm. He continued nighttime employment on Wall Street for 4 years while attending studies at New York University for 3 ½ years until his graduation from NYU with a BA degree. While employed at the brokerage firm, James developed and installed the Monthly Investment Plan for Wall Street which allowed small investors to acquire fractional shares of stock thus facilitating the building of a large investment portfolio over time. Upon graduation from NYU he was employed at the headquarters office of Mobil Oil Company in NYC where he was instrumental in the development of a computer based corporate accounting system for Mobil. During his tenure at Mobil he played a significant part in the procurement and installation of commercial computers for this accounting system at the nationwide U.S. offices of Mobil and in South America. Following his time at Mobil he was employed at the Dallas offices of IBM and served as the leader of a Marketing and Technical group responsible for a significant portion of the IBM customer base. His years with IBM ended with his recruitment by Optimum Systems. Inc. (OSI), a California based operations research and computer service organization, to establish and serve as the manager of a Southwest Divisional office located in Dallas. With OSI's development of a computer based player selection system for the Dallas Cowboys, he served as the liaison between OSI and the Cowboy management. The player selection system eventually franchised for use by the NFL. Following his tenure at OSI he was selected to serve at the Southwest Regional Office of the General Services Administration in Fort Worth as Director of Telecommunications and Data Processing Services for all federal activities located in Texas and the 5 adjoining states. His last and most enjoyable position prior to retirement was spent serving thirteen years as the Technical Director at the USAF Systems Command located at Andrews AFB Maryland.
In retirement James and wife loved to travel throughout the U.S., Africa, Asia, Australia, China, Europe and other far flung places to learn something about the people, culture, animals and geography of this planet. His love of animals led to a 3 week photographic safari in Kenya. This trip was accomplished in a jeep with a knowledgeable driver/guide and covered over 1200 miles of rough terrain. He loved the game of bridge and hosted up to three tables in his home twice a week. James was blessed to have lived a long and adventuresome life; to achieve many goals, to share a love with 3 women over his lifetime and who only with their unselfish support made all things possible. He was preceded in death by his parents and one of his wives who shared his life over a period of 57 years.
Survivors: Son, David Ainslie, daughter, Linda Lewis and step-daughter, Melinda Ratliff, seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and many lifelong and dear friends.