Jim Stembridge

Jim Stembridge worked more than a decade as legislative staff (non-partisan committee administrator) in Oregon’s Capitol in Salem. He has written summaries of several hundred legislative bills. He did project management, program administration, and public information work for several state agencies, including the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office--writing, editing, and producing more than 100 government publications, including newsletters, reports, and fire safety curricula. He was an adjunct instructor at the National Fire Academy (National Emergency Training Center) in Emmitsburg, MD.

Jim earned a PhD in geography at the University of Oregon. His interests in photography date from the years he did coastal hazards research and taught--and prepared illustrations for--geography classes at the University of Oregon (Eugene) and East Carolina University (Greenville, NC). He is the author/editor of Pathfinder: The First Automobile Trip between Newport and Siletz Bay, Oregon, July 1912 (Lincoln County Historical Society, 1975), a collection of historic photographs.

Working for many years in Oregon’s capitol in Salem, Jim saw how the building’s shape and structure facilitated deliberation and decision-making on important issues of the day. Elected representatives of the citizenry argue, debate, deliberate and make the decisions, he found, but they do so within the context of the building that is the state’s capitol. Stembridge went traveling to see how each of the fifty state capitols exhibits the classical ideals of democracy and democratically-elected representative government.

Ruth (short for Ruthless), a black lab & German shepherd mix, was the author's travel companion. To read more about Jim & Ruth's travel adventures to America's fifty state capitols, go to the book's website and click on the attachments for Fall, 2007 and Fall, 2008.