Born & raised in Oshawa Ontario. Jim presently lives on the east shore of Lake Simcoe. Jim has a daughter in her twenties living in Vancouver.
Jim started his sales career in 1973 as a driver/salesman for R.J Lucas & Arthur Meat Company. After one year he was transferred to Ottawa as an Account Manager, then eight months later transferred to a sister company in Vancouver supervising eight driver salesmen in the Vancouver area & Fraser Valley.
Jim returned to Toronto a year later accepting a job as Sales Manager for a Montreal based meat company called Her-Pak.
Two years later, he took a job with Burns Meats as an Account Executive looking after three chain’s head office, two years later (1978) transferred to Head Office in Calgary to established a Food Service Meat program. Two years later promoted to Marketing Manager to a sister company in Calgary, Scott National (now Sysco Food Service).
In 1984 Jim transferred back to Toronto as a Sales Supervisor, inspecting 31 sales reps with the Burns Meats division.
Jim left Burns Meats accepting a job as Sales Manager for Douwe Egberts a specialty coffee company & led a team of nine sales reps.
In 1989 Jim left Douwe Egberts buying a small beverage dispensing company called Complete Beverage Systems with sales of $100,000.00, two employees. In 1995 Jim sold the company while attempting to buy a competitor. At the time of selling Complete Beverage Systems sales were $9,000,000,00 with 17 employees.
Jim continues to operate Pearl Projects Food Service, a food broker representing several companies in the Caribbean shipping containers of juice products from Florida to Nassau Bahamas, Freeport, Turks & Caicos & Bermuda. Pearl Projects also represents the interests of other companies & ships food products from Canada, Germany & Florida to Caribbean Island destinations.
While Jim was building his beverage company, he decided to follow a love of music at the same time. Coming from a family of gifted musicians Jim played guitar in bands for years as a kid. In 1985 decided to spend some time in Nashville. Jim recorded 2 albums in Nashville under DJ Hopson. DJ Hopson had a string of charting singles in Canada including a top 10 single in the late 80’s with a tune called Cold Front, written by Alan Jackson. Being an artist was not the final vocation he was looking for. Jim decided to change his music involvement starting another business.
In 1995 Jim started the Wellcraft Music Group encompassing 2 recording studios, a record label & an artist management company. Jim produced & engineered over 200 artists & enjoyed dozens of radio charting releases. Both Howie House of Music Recording Studios & Lake Effect Studios became a “go to” for a long list of recording artists.After a 25 year ride Jim sold the music studios moving to a some new interes
In 1998 Jim started Pearl Projects, a Sales/Marketing consulting company. Recently Jim has added another offering to Pearl Projects. Help for small Business Assessment & Mediation Services. After receiving dozens of calls from small businesses over the past couple years Jim decided to turn this into a business. This is an all-inclusive take a look & offer real solutions. Maybe you could use an outside forensic look at what you have been doing & what’s not working, then some suggestions how to make things better.
Over the past few years he has worked with:
- Bahamas Foodservice (now Sysco Bahamas)
- Cargill
- Caribbean Beverage Systems
- Duda Farms
- Gordon Food Service
- Hering Propellers
- Peace River Citrus
- Qualifirst Foods
- Starport Marina
- Strano Food Service (now Sysco Food Service)
- Unique Beverage
In 2013 Jim started Lake Effect Power Boats representing a line of Sport Performance Boats “Concept Boats”.
Jim also participates in charity boat events & Poker Runs throughout Ontario with “Barney”. Barney is a custom 36 foot Concept with twin 400HP Racing Mercury Verados.
Lake Effect Power Boats also charters “Barney” out for company promotional outings on the water.
