Jim Merkel is the name of two American authors.
The first, born 1957, is an American author, volunteer, and engineer who moved from involvement in the military industry to advocating simple living. Since 1989, Merkel has dedicated himself to trying to reduce his personal impact on the environment and to encourage others to do the same.
Initially trained as an electrical engineer, Merkel spent twelve years designing industrial and military systems. After witnessing the devastation following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, however, he concluded that global problems had become so urgent as to require immediate action. He consequently quit his job and began a new career as an environmental activist and spokesman.
He claims to have lived on $5,000 a year (close to the global median income) for 16 years (ca. 1989 - 2005), later increasing to $10,000 per year. He founded the Alternative Transportation Task Force in San Luis Obispo, California and served briefly as an elected officer of the Sierra Club; he conducts approximately 60 workshops each year on sustainable living and "radical simplicity" in the United States, Canada, and Spain.
In 1994 he received an Earthwatch Gaia Fellowship, allowing him to visit Kerala, India, and parts of the Himalayas to research sustainable living. In 1995, he founded the Global Living Project and continues to serve as its co-director.
In April 2005, Dartmouth College appointed him its first Sustainability Director. He lives in Belfast, Maine.
The second, born in 1951, has reported for the Suburban Journals chain of community newspapers in St. Louis, Mo. since 1991. He covered St. Louis City Hall for the chain from 2002 to 2009 and now reports on the working class community of Granite City, Il.
In 2001, he self-published "Majestic Light: the Apostle Islands Lighthouses" about the historic lighthouses of the Apostle Islands archipelago in Lake Superior. In 2010, Reedy Press, a publishing house in St. Louis, published his book "Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis's South Side." On Oct. 27, 2011, the Historical Society of Saint Louis County presented him with its Saint Louis Book Award. He is writing a second book for Reedy Press, on the St. Louis German-American community. It is scheduled for release in September 2012. Merkel's great-great grandfather came to New York from Germany around the late 1840s and then moved to St. Louis in 1858. There he established a piano factory. His brother, Louis Charles Merkel III, is the fifth generation in the family to work as a piano craftsman.
Merkel grew up in the St. Louis area and holds a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri.
He has freelanced since 1970 and was a full-time freelancer from 1981-89. In the 1980s, he wrote articles for overseas distribution by the United States Information Agency and penned about two dozens articles for The New York Times on the real estate market in small Pennsylvania towns.
Merkel and his wife, Lorraine, live in the Bevo Mill neighborhood of South St. Louis.