James "Jim" Jannard is an American designer and businessman, and founder of eyewear and apparel company Oakley, Inc. and RED Digital Cinema.
He sold Oakley in mid 2007 for over $2 billion[1] and placed 376th in Forbes Magazine ranking of World's Billionaires in 2010, with a net worth of $3.0 billion.[2]
He is also the founder and principal backer of RED Digital Cinema, a manufacturer of high-resolution digital motion-picture cameras used in productions designed for cinema release. The company first showed a mock-up of their camera in April, 2006 at NAB 2006 and began shipping cameras on August 31, 2007.
In 2009 Jannard was named one of the 100 Most Creative People by Fast Company Magazine.[3]
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Jannard was born in 1949 and grew up in Alhambra, California. Jannard attended the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles, California until he dropped out in his 3rd year. He named the Oakley company after his dog, Oakley Anne, an English Setter.
Jannard started Oakley in 1975 with $300. His first product was a handgrip he designed for motorcycles and BMX. In 1980 Jannard designed a goggle that was introduced to the market as the Oakley O/20 Goggle. In 1984 Jannard designed the first Oakley sunglass called the Oakley Eyeshade. Nine years later Oakley passed RayBan in worldwide sales. Oakley went public in 1995 with the ticker of OO on the NYSE. Jannard holds over 600 patents worldwide for his inventions. He was nicknamed "Mad Scientist" by Oakley employees in the 1980s. Jannard sold Oakley in 2007 for $2.2B making him one of the wealthiest people in the world.
In 2005 Jannard started RED Digital Cinema Camera Company. The company's first camera was the RED ONE and was supported by Peter Jackson and Steven Soderbergh. Feature films that have been shot on RED include David Fincher's The Social Network(2010), Contagion (2011), Ché (2008), District 9 (2009), Knowing (2009), Rabbit Hole (2010), Gamer (2009), Fair Game (2010), Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (2011) and many others.
The next generation RED cameras scheduled for release are called EPIC and SCARLET. EPIC is currently being used on several of the biggest budget Hollywood movies including Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit", The Amazing Spider-man", Ridley Scott's "Prometheus", "Jack the Giant Killer", "Contagion" (2011) and "Underworld 4" (2011).
A keen photographer, he maintains a website of his own photographs.[4] Jannard shot all of Oakley's ads and commercials for the first 20 years of Oakley history. He used high-end Canon equipment, including a 1DS camera and one of few EF 1200 mm lenses in existence. He now uses only RED EPIC cameras which he makes. Jannard is a camera collector and owns over 1,000 cameras. His photographic subjects include race cars that are sponsored by Oakley and RED Digital, his dogs, and his personal Bombardier Global Express Jet.
He has owned four jets: a Falcon 20, a Falcon 50, and two Global Express
He is married and has four children. Jim lives on Spieden Island in the state of Washington and his islands Kaibu and Vatu Vara in Fiji.[5] He currently has 12 grandchildren.'.