Obituary of James S. Avery, Sr.

James S. Avery, Sr. Educational Background: Cranford Public Schools Columbia College, BA Columbia University Master of Arts, Majoring in Education University of Southern California, Graduate School of Business Administration: (Executive Management Training) Life Achievements: Mr. Avery retired from Exxon Company, U. S. A. (domestic affiliate of Exxon Corporation) in 1986 after 30 years of service. He began in 1956 as a public relations representative working with educational and race relations programs. This was a period of continuing segregation and racial prejudice. Esso had no Black person in a managerial role and there were no employees in sales and there were only a few Blacks who operated service stations selling Esso products. In 1960, he became a national community relations coordinator for the company developing and implementing programs that impacted particularly upon minority group organizations throughout the United States. He created a program that dramatically increased the number of minority service station dealers selling the company's products. He was instrumental in recruiting minority employees in company locations throughout the country in the years before civil rights legislation was passed. He also made presentations to headquarters in Houston that led to successful advertising campaigns for EBONY magazine and Black press in major cities in the Esso marketing territory. In 1968 he was appointed Public Relations Manager for Exxon Company, U.S.A.'s largest sales region in the nation; an area covering Maine through Maryland. In 1971, he was promoted to Public Affairs Manager for the same section of the United States. In that region he headed a staff responsible for the company's overall governmental, public, media and community relations planning and programmatic implementation. The highest-ranking black executive in the oil industry at that time, he compiled a broad and highly successful record in developing and implementing programs and projects geared toward improving the company's corporate social responsibility, sales climate and profitability goals. From 1983 until his retirement in 1986, Mr. Avery served as Senior Public Affairs Consultant for Exxon Company, U.S.A. From 1981-1983, Mr. Avery participated in Exxon's Loaned Executive Program as Executive Vice President with the Council on Municipal Performance, a national non-profit organization whose mission was management efficiency and fiscal accountability in local government. While there he co-authored the BOOK OF AMERICAN CITY RANKINGS, a compendium of carefully selected facts and figures dealing with the environmental, economic, demographic and social aspects of 100 of America's largest cities. Mr. Avery has had a long and distinguished career in civic life in positions of leadership in a number of national and state-level organizations. Over a three-year period in the 1960's, he served as vice chairman and later chairman of Vice President Hubert Humphrey's Task Force on Youth Motivation during the Lyndon Johnson administration. The main objective of the Task Force was to encourage students at predominantly black high schools, colleges and universities to prepare for new opportunities in business and industry. Mr. Avery guided the Task Force's efforts to organize campus student committees that could arrange for local Plans for Progress companies to consult with students on such matters as job demands and preparation of resumes. Mr. Avery was a national co-chairman of three annual campaigns of the United Negro College Fund from 1965 through 1967. During those years, through speaking engagements and visitations to cities around the country, he helped to raise more than $12 million for the historically Black colleges and universities. He felt strongly about building the financial resources Black colleges and universities would need for the important job of educational preparedness of Black students. Avery served three terms as national president and one term as board chairman of the National Association of Market Developers, Inc., (NAMD), a professional association composed chiefly of minority executives and other management people in sales promotion, public relations and marketing fields throughout the country. While leading NAMD, he expanded its membership with vigorous programming, one of the most outstanding being a series of business career conferences that were held by the organization's local chapters across America. It was becoming more important to alert young Black youth of the kind of emerging opportunities that would be available in business and industry. The national conventions of NAMD during his years as national president set a high standard with key national figures in business, industry and government participating as panelists and main speakers. He was also a member for several years during the 1960's of the Board of Trustees and National Council of the Museum of African American Art-Frederick Douglas Institute of Negro Art and History. Mr. Avery was elected to serve three years (l970-l973) as the Grand Basileus (national president) of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. During his administration, he initiated a drug education program, a youth educational motivation program, a funding program for the fraternity's national housing project, a national Health O'Rama, reorganized the life membership program, expanded the fraternity's Scholarship Commission and stimulated strong chapter development. During that period, he was listed by EBONY Magazine as one of the l00 most Influential Blacks in America. Mr. Avery also served as vice chairman of the Omega Life Membership Foundation responsible for managing the investments of the funds of life members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Mr. Avery, the 28th Grand Basileus of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. remains very active with the organization participating as a consultant to the presiding leadership at international, district and chapter levels and as the keynote speaker for many fraternal affairs. He continues to encourage members and chapters around the world to focus upon the educational and social needs of black youth. Mr. Avery has held several prestigious positions relating to energy development and oil industry affairs. In 1977 and 1978, he was chairman of the Executive Committee of the New York State Petroleum Council where he expanded the Speakers Bureau and its educational relations program. He served three years as vice-chairman of the American Petroleum Institute's Committee of Exploration Affairs, Offshore Sub-Committee. During that time he coordinated the Industry's Support Witness Program for environmental impact hearings along the Atlantic Coast and the media relations program on the Industry's Atlantic offshore activities. His leadership helped to achieve the opportunity to drill for oil and gas off the Atlantic Coast for the oil industry. He also served as a vice-chairman of the Energy Policy Committee of Associated Industries of New York State, later known as the Business Council of New York State. He served for many years on the board of trustees of the New York State Traffic Safety Council, the New York State Council on Economic Education and the New Jersey State Council on Economic Education. Before joining Exxon (then Esso Standard Oil Company) in 1956, he served from 1949 to 1956 as a teacher, assuming in l954 the chairmanship of the Social Studies Department at Cranford High School, Cranford, N.J. While there, he was Student Council Advisor, assistant coach for football, basketball and track and the practice teaching coordinator working with student teachers from Rutgers University and Montclair State. He also coordinated the school's citizenship education program. While a student at Cranford High School, he was the Student Council President, an all-state football star and a state low hurdles champion. In 1998, he was inducted into the Cranford, NJ Sports Hall of Fame and in l999 was honored as a Cranford High School alumnus for outstanding achievements by the Cranford Fund for Educational Excellence. Mr. Avery lived in Plainfield, NJ from l954 to l968. While a resident there he served for a number of years as board chairman of the city's Local Assistance Board, an agency which supervised the activities of the Plainfield Welfare Department. He was also a charter member of the Plainfield Human Relations Commission and served as co-chairman of the commission's Committee on Housing and as a member of the Commission's Public Relations Committee. He also served on the Plainfield Adult Evening School Council and was a member of the Plainfield Committee of the Board of Directors of the Union County Psychiatric Clinic. Mr. Avery was a charter member and a past president of the Plainfield Area Club of Frontiers International. Mr. Avery was also a trustee of the Westfield, NJ Community Center Association for twenty years and a member and past president of its Board of Directors. Mr. Avery held the office of chairman of the Union County (NJ) Coordinating Agency for Higher Education from its inception in l968 until December l980. The Agency was the contracting body through which Union College, then an independent two-year institution, and Union County Technical Institute, a public post-secondary school operated cooperatively to form a comprehensive community college system unique in the field of higher education. The two institutions were later combined to form the community college now called Union County College. From the late l970s until l994, he served on the board of PRIME, Inc., a regional non-profit pre-college intervention program based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through aggressive corporate mentoring, the program encouraged thousands of minority students to enter higher education, many of them in engineering and other math and science based professions. For five of those years he was that organization's vice-chairman. In 1992, Mr. Avery was elected by the Lincoln University Trustees to be a member of their Trustee Board. Lincoln University, located in Oxford, Pennsylvania, is the oldest, historically black college/university in the United States. While a member of the Board, he served on the Governance Committee, Evaluations Committee and the Educational Relations Committee. He also chaired the Student Affairs Committee. Mr. Avery served on that Board for eight years. Also in 1992, Mr. Avery was appointed by the Governor of New Jersey to the Board of Directors of the New Jersey State Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF). The Fund works with the state's public and independent colleges and universities to provide access and opportunity to higher education for thousands of economically and educationally disadvantaged NJ residents. He chaired this program for three years. In addition, in l993 he was appointed by the Governor of the State of New Jersey to membership on the New Jersey Student Assistance Board. In l999, representing the EOF, he became a member of the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, one of the most comprehensive student assistance programs in the United States. The Authority is one of the most comprehensive student assistance programs in the nation providing more than five hundred million dollars annually in all forms of student aid for New Jersey residents. For several years prior to his retirement from general public activities, Mr. Avery served again as Chairperson of the EOF Board. During his corporate management years, Mr. Avery was listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, WHO'S WHO AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS and the EBONY SUCCESS LIBRARY. While a Public Affairs Manager for Exxon Company, U.S.A., he was listed in WHO'S WHO IN FINANCE AND INDUSTRY. During his distinguished career, many of his speeches, including his college commencement speeches, were reprinted and distributed to business, educational and social organizations around the country focusing on the need for educational preparedness and the responsible use of human talents. In addition, he received the Jackie Robinson Foundation's "ROBIE" Lifetime Achievement Award in March of 2006. His autobiography, OTHERS THOUGHT I COULD LEAD, was published in 2006 by Wheatmark Publishers, Inc, Tuscon, AZ. Mr. Avery and his wife, Joan, have five children and ten grandchildren and currently live in the Rossmoor Community in Monroe Township, New Jersey, where he is a member of the Kiwanis Club and the Rossmoor Community Interfaith Council. Mr. Avery is a member of the Rossmoor Community Church and was an member of the First Baptist Church, Cranford, New Jersey where he served on its Trustee Board, the First Baptist Church Credit Union's audit committee and was president of the church's Laymen's Association. Mr. Avery's autobiography "OTHERS THOUGHT I COULD LEAD" can be ordered through Barnes and Noble and Borders or it can be obtained by using your computer from the publisher. Log onto www.wheatmark.com. In the "search your bookstore " space enter "James S. Avery, Sr." This will take you to a page on which the book cover is shown. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Joan (Showers) Avery of Rossmoor, Monroe Twp., two daughters, Sheryl A. Avery of Monmouth Junction, and Jean Gregus and her husband Robert of Gilbert, AZ, and three sons, James S. Avery, Jr. of Sunrise, FL, George Horrigan and his wife Lisa of Bakersfield, CA, and Robert Horrigan and his wife Lisa of Cockeysville, MD. He is also survived by ten grandchildren, two great grandsons, and two nieces. Funeral services will begin at 8:15am on Friday May 6, 2011 from the M. David DeMarco Funeral Home 205 Rhode Hall Rd. Monroe Twp., NJ 08831, 732-521-0555. The service will be held at 10:00am at First Baptist Church 100 High St. Cranford, NJ 07016 followed by Interment in Fairview Cemetery, Westfield. Visitation will be 2-4pm and 7-9pm on Thursday at the funeral home.