Jim Gleason has been an attorney at law since 1980. He received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from MSU in 1958 and served in the U.S. Army Reserves from January to July 1959. He served as the Hillsdale County MSU Extension 4-H agent from August 1959 to June 1961. From 1963 to 1964 he participated in The Experiment in International Living for World Learning where he planned and led high school and college students abroad to Austria, England and Germany. In 1963, he received his master’s degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts. From 1964 to 1970 he owned and operated a 500-acre dairy farm and participated in the Kellogg Young Farmer Program, an experimental program funded by the Kellogg Foundation focusing on state, national and world problems with a major emphasis on the African and Asian economic and political situation. He worked in the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) economist from 1970 to 76 and was responsible for developing the Agricultural Marketing and Bargaining Board and the Michigan Beef Industry Commission and also traveled to Europe and Asia as an MDA representative. In 1979 he received a J.D. degree from Thomas J. Cooley Law School in Lansing. He and his family have been host to several foreign exchange students which stems from his experience as a 4-H member and IFYE participant. He was a Michigan 4-H Foundation trustee from 1982 to 1994, serving on the foundation’s finance and program committees. He is a member of the Hamburg Kiwanis Club, Hamburg Township Library Board, Van’s Pines, Inc. Board, Webster United Church and a life member of the IFYE Association of the USA.