Jim Davis (born 1943) is the Chairman of New Balance and a co-founder of Major League Lacrosse.[1][2][3][4]
James S. Davis was born in 1943.[1] He attended the Worcester Academy, and he received a Bachelor of Science in biology and chemistry from Middlebury College in 1966.[1][2][4][5] While in college, he played college football.[3][5]
He started his career as asales engineer at the LFE Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts, and as marketing manager for the Applied Geodata Systems Division of Techven Associates of Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2][4] I972, he bought New Balance, then only a 6-employee firm in Boston, and turned it into a 4,000-employee global corporation with revenues topping $1.6 billion.[1][2][4] He has been a Board member of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the International Athletic Footwear & Apparel Manufacturers Association, and the Two/Ten Foundation.[4] He is a member of the Athletic Footwear Council and is on the Executive Committee of the Rubber and Plastic Footwear Manufacturers Association.[4] He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Citizen’s Bank in Providence, Rhode Island.[4]
He has donated $500,000 to Mitt Romney's Super PAC, Restore Our Future.[6][7] He has donated $5 million to the University of Maine.[1] He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, Middlebury College.[1] A library on its campus has also been named for him.[5] He formerly sat on its Board of Trustees, on the Worcester Academy's, and on Newberry College's.[4][8] He sits on the Board of Trustees of the Sports Museum of New England and formerly Boston Children's Museum.[4][9]
As of September 2011, he is the 692nd richest person in the world, and the 242nd richest in the United States, with an estimated wealth of US$1.8 billion.[1] He is married, and has two children.[1] He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.[1]