James Martin

Middlebury, Vt. & Monterey, Calif. — Faculty and staff at Middlebury College and its graduate school the Monterey Institute of International Studies were saddened to learn late yesterday of the death of James Martin. Martin, a successful technology entrepreneur who became an activist and philanthropist in the field of international security, made an endowed gift in 2007 to support the renamed James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute. The center’s mission is to combat the threat of weapons of mass destruction through research, education and training.

“This is a great loss,” said Middlebury President Ron Liebowitz. “Jim had a tremendous personal commitment to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons and exploring methods of enhancing international security. His lecture at the college six years ago was most memorable – a two-hour tour de force that demonstrated his remarkable range and depth of expertise on the many issues related to our planet’s survival.”

“I met with Jim very recently and we discussed in detail the future of the center that continues to bear his name,” said Monterey Institute President Sunder Ramaswamy. “Everyone at the Institute and the James Martin Center sends their deepest condolences to Lillian and the rest of Jim’s family.”

An Oxford-educated physicist, Martin was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his book “The Wired Society: A Challenge for Tomorrow” (1977). He joined IBM in 1959, founded or co-founded several technology consulting firms, and was once ranked by Computerworld magazine as the fourth most influential person in the history of computer science. In addition to his support for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, Martin gave a founding gift in 2005 to establish The James Martin 21st Century School at the University of Oxford.

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies has offices in Monterey, Calif., Washington, D.C., and Vienna, Austria.