What Jim Surkamp Once Did

Briefly -

I was born at West Point, NY while my father, (previously one of four captains of the class of June, 1943) was teaching there. Lived lots of places growing up on three continents.

I graduated with a BA from Colgate U. in 1971, majoring in American intellectual and cultural history, minored in education; got most of the coursework for an MBA at Fordham. I worked in the headquarters of the company called ADT on the 92nd Floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Was an investigative reporter out of college for The Rockland Journal News in Nyack, N.Y. where I wrote a series of investigative articles that led directly to the indictment of the Supervisor of Clarkstown, NY, named William E. Vines. While setting up the communications department of a leading energy engineering consulting firm called Flack and Kurtz Consulting Engineers, I initiated a series of meetings that led to the formation of the Cogeneration Society of New York. (My firm was hired by Helmsley Spear to evaluate the feasabilitty of having the Empire State Building go off the Con Ed grid, leading to this initiative of mine). Worked for one year in 1973-4 doing a very interesting intense job after responding to a classified ad for a "staff writer." I worked for Management Safeguards Inc., then at 2 Park Avenue, and supervised at any given time about ten undercover investigations that always entailed theft losses from$10,000 to $300,000. There were several convictions resulting from the work I did. It was pretty heavy.

In the years while exiting corporate life, I started my own greeting card company called Squiggles that had cards in thirty stores including Macy's while doing contracted research for American Heritage Magazine. For about four years I researched deeply into the topic of art that was stolen by the Nazis during World War II. I was hired to be an expert witness at a key restitution case involving Durers. After several important FOIAs that de-classified thousands of sensitive documents involving art investigated by the OSS (the early CIA), I decided to donate my research to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,a highly respected Holocaust research center. It is called the James Surkamp Collection and is some twenty boxes of documents. I didn't know to read the pidgin Nazi German that a trove of documents I located was written in. The documents were all the records of a secret art looting team, led by a Baron von Kunsberg. But I thought someone who knew German could take it the rest of the way, better than I.

The most interesting time was when my room-mate in my apartment on Waverly Place in the Village and a graphic artist partnered with a team of people to do a children's book with Muhammad Ali teaching children nutrition. Great fun and lots of stories. I met Ali several times. He was the king at that time: 1979.

I left New York, traveled. Peter Tompkins, an author of books on the Pyramids and other matters, asked me to house-sit and take care of his newly bought farm on Route 480- just south of Deerfield Village ( I planted those apple trees for Jerry Hockman with three other guys back in 1983).

Since then I won an internationally juried award called the Angel Award "for moral excellence in media" for an hour-long radio docu-drama called "Don't Mean Nothin', which was the result of six years research and preparation. It was a true story of a man who went thru the Vietnam conflict and was marred by PTSD. Film Director Oliver Stone read it and gave me permission to use his soundscapes from his films in its production. The Executive Producer of Monitor Ken Bader (now the producer of NPR's The World) wrote me that it was "the best script I have read in twenty years of broadcasting." That was very nice. It was broadcast on Veterans Day and Memorial Day on NPR in NYC, Dallas, LA, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Miami among others. The death of my mother when I was 19, led me to as a sort of calling and purpose to be supportive of people dealing with grief from death. From 1985 thru about 2004 - working as the bereavement care coordinator for pre-Medicare Hospice in M-burg and later as founder of the free lay support service called The Grief Support Network, Inc., I facilitated about 800 support groups in three counties locally and made about 10,000 phone calls over an 18-year period, usually calling about 80 people a month. You will find plenty of people who went thru those groups. That's what I did and am very grateful to have done this long term work.

I did a lot of grant-supported work on County history along with hours of televised production on cable television, coming out of Frederick, MD.

I produced two of the most attended events at the National Conservation Center Community Program - one about the County's history,the other about a poet/gardener named Danske Dandridge. Also did a lot of classes and tours in conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management's Eastern Management Development Center in Shepherdstown.

In short, everyone has done stuff. Everyone has a past. I'm very glad to have lived my life as I have.

Sincerely
Jim