Snapshot: Jim Filby Williams

Jim Filby Williams grew up in Annapolis, MD and graduated from Yale University before beginning a career in non-profit leadership at the Yellowstone Association Institute in Yellowstone National Park. He has been executive director of Animal Allies Humane Society since 2006. Jim lives with his wife, Sheryl, infant son, Jasper, and dog, Bear, near Lester Park where the family loves to hike and ski.

What is your most marked characteristic?
Obsessiveness, I’m afraid. Particularly with public service – for better or for worse.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I struggle with that one because in my work life, I haven’t done it yet. I’m very focused on the work ahead to a fault. When an accomplishment is complete, it’s in the rearview mirror and it’s time to look to the next challenge. In my private life, of course the greatest achievement I’ve contributed to is my little clan – my family.

When and where were you happiest?
In my bachelor incarnation, living in Red Lodge Montana and guiding backcountry trips all around the American West. In my married life, right now. Things are as good and I am as content and happy as ever. More at peace, I’d guess.

What is your greatest regret?
Wasting four years pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology. As a middle class kid, fresh out of college, a PhD felt solid and secure. I didn’t yet have the courage or the insight to dive into the world with nothing but my wits and my integrity and my drive.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
That’s such an odd question. I don’t believe in bliss. Perfect happiness for me is just having all of life’s ingredients in perfect balance – time outside with my family – time alone to hike and ski and meaningful work – all in just the right proportion.

What is your most treasured possession?
I’m really not materialistic – to the point that I’m still wearing a lot of things from the early 90’s. Right now my 2000 Toyota Rav4 – my first 20th century car (even though it was manufactured in 1999).

Where would you most like to live?
In a place that doesn’t really exist. A small town in the northern Rockies that’s close to family (all of whom are in Minnesota and Maryland). In the real world, Duluth is as good as it gets. I love the combination of mountains and the sea and the north woods. There’s nothing else like it in North America that I can think of.

What is your greatest fear?
Irrelevance. The inability to contribute to and participate in public life in a meaningful way.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My inability or disinclination to invest in relationships outside of my work and family.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
I guess gossip and innuendo, particularly when it concerns the misfortune of others.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Optimism. A peculiarly American brand of optimism that is sunshiny with an almost willful disregard of the facts, but in our society is oddly admired.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Books, books, books and more books. My wife calls books “the other woman” and for a long time that was Lyndon B. Johnson’s biography. I’m really trying to use the library more and bookstores less.

What’s on your iPod?
I have an iPod and I don’t know how to use it, but I have learned how to use a CD player – Wilcom Diskytown, Bob Dylan – rootsy alternative country with a bittersweet feel.

What is your favorite journey?
On foot in the Northern Rockies – hiking or skiing, dawn to dusk. Usually to some remote peak that not many people go to.

What is it that you most dislike?
Conceit – in myself and in others. I find excessive pride very distasteful and unfortunately ubiquitous.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
I don’t knowingly value different qualities in men vs. women. Even if I reject the premise, I’m going to answer it anyway. In men, for lack of a better term, emotional intelligence – that interpersonal sensitivity, gentleness, thoughtfulness and finesse – rare and wonderful qualities in guys.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
In women, I think conviction and the stubbornness to stand up for it.

What do you most value in your friends?
A sense of humor.

If you were to come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
I would come back as a jazz musician because of the very limited opportunities I’ve had to perform music, which have been the most enthralling experiences of my life. But I want to make it clear; I’m a bad musician.

How would you like to die?
With the sure knowledge that I’ve loved my family well and I’ve made lasting contributions to my community.