Jim Cressman enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1969 and proudly served a very rewarding four years active duty. Three of those years were spent in S.E. Asia during the Vietnam war. After tech school at Keesler, AFB he spent two years at Ubon, Thailand with the 8th TFW and the final year at Udorn, Thailand. Those years were spent working on the avionics systems in the F-4 Phantom. After my Air Force career, I traveled extensively as a field engineer throughout Central and South America selling, installing and maintaining large computerized industrial weighing systems. That experience opened the door to several other careers finally settling on a career in financial and investment services. After many years working for one of the largest Wall Street firms, he began his own company in 1992, and retired with his wife, Mary, in 2016.
Just prior to his retirement, Jim began to experience the symptoms of Inclusion Body Myositis. The diagnosis was confirmed in 2015 and resulted in needing to move from their two- story home in the Chicago area to a single story – IBM friendly residence. They chose to relocate to a very scenic area of far western Colorado where they currently reside and thoroughly enjoy the tranquility of country living.
Throughout the journey of dealing with IBM, Jim has read, extensively, some of the articles available from some of the top medical IBM researchers. He now wishes to share this with other veterans in hopes of opening the doorway so they will be able to gain the disability benefits that have been denied for so long by having IBM recognized as a service-connected disability. Jim is a very active co-leader in TMA’s Military Veterans with Myositis Affinity Group.