James O. (Jim) Harris

On Tuesday, September 21, 1999, James O. Harris, age 51, known to many of us in the inventing community as "Jim", passed away. Jim Harris was President of Princeton Products, and was known as a technology product scout and consultant with 18 years of retail management and 24 years of marketing and merchandising experience, including Wal-Mart stores.

Over the past few years, Jim generously contributed his time and knowledge within the invention community in many ways. Harris, who was also President of White Oak Publishing, Inc., wrote 15 papers dedicated to the small and independent inventor which were published in various publications such as Inventors Digest magazine and e-zines such as InventNet, Andy Gibbs Inventors Resource, the Patent Cafe, and America's Inventor Online.

He served as Assistant Sysop of the Ideas to Invention Forum for Compuserve, shared his expertise on the Inventors e-mail list, was a frequent speaker at inventor trade shows throughout the U.S. including the Invention Convention® and the Yankee Invention Expositon.

As President of the American Innovation Workshops, his future goal was to help educate inventors through a series of quality seminars throughout the country. He also served as Vice President of Inventnet International Corporation, and was an advocate for the rights of the independent inventor.

We understand that there have been some recent concerns in the inventing community about his marketing practices. The circumstances around the rumors aren't totally clear, and at this point they will never be clarified. But to give Jim the benefit of the doubt, we know that he had been ill for several months and because of that, he did not have an opportunity to thoroughly defend himself.

Our own personal experience is that he freely offered of himself over the two and a half year period that we knew him, even giving free advice to many of our clients and exhibitors. And I think that it would only be fair, due to his untimely death, to look at Jim in terms of the many contributions that he did make. I feel that many of you who have worked with him, or benefited from his contributions, would have to agree.

We feel that his immediate famliy, his wife and children, need all the sympathy and condolences at this time. If you worked with Jim or knew him well, it would be nice for you to contact his family who are grieving over his untimely death.

The funeral services for Jim Harris will take place on Friday, September 24th, 1999 at 2:00pm at the Baptist Church, Luginbuel, Vinita in Chelsea, Oklahoma.

You can send condolences to:

The Harris Family
11 Shady Lane Drive
Chelsea, OK 74016