BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES, James N. Sites

 

James N. Sites was born in Pittsburgh, PA, on March 20, 1924 but left at age 10 because of the Great Depression, growing up thereafter in a Tom Sawyer­-like environment along the Ohio River. (This forms the background for his 1998 book on traditional American values: AMERICA: The Search and the Secret. ) He graduated from Chesapeake (Ohio) High School as c1ass valedictorean in 1940, then attended Marshall University for one year. He went on to serve 3 1/2 years in the US Merchant Marine during World War Il, mainly in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. He is a Journalism graduate of Detroit's Wayne State U. (1950) and member of the Wayne Honorary Society (Phi Beta Kappa).

Sites' varied career ranges from powerplant engineer to being a news reporter for The Chrysler Motors Magazine, Business Week Magazine and Whaley-Eaton News Service (the first Washington, DC newsletters ), editor-in-chief and publisher of The American Legion Magazine and editor of Wings of Gold (magazine of the Association of Naval Aviation). In 1961 he was named the USA's Eisenhower Exchange Fellow, which led to a year-long overseas search with wife Inger for clues to the transport future (reported in his 1963 book, QUEST FOR CRISIS).

Sites subsequently became communications executive for the Association of American Railroads, the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Manufacturers, where he also served as president of NAM's foundation. From 1968 to 1974 he headed the Washington office of the leading US public relations consulting firm, Carl Byoir & Associates.

          During the Ford Administration (1975-6), Sites was appointed Director of Public Affairs for the US Treasury Department and special assistant to Secretary William E. Simon, legendary champion of the competitive enterprise system.

          Sites is married to the former Inger Marie Krogh, of Oslo, Norway, daughter of the noted Norwegian opera singer, Erling Krogh,  She is also the heroine of his 2006 book, INGER! A Modern-Day Viking Discovers America.* The two make their home in Oslo and Rehoboth Beach, DE. They have two sons, James Philip Sites, of Billings, MT, and Erik Krogh Sites, of Oslo.
 

* INGER! is published {at $25) by the Jesse Stuart Foundation.