About your Congressional candidate

James Lloyd Roach was born on January 21st, 1952 and adopted at one month of age by Tom and Marge Roach of Flushing Michigan. Tom Roach worked as a bookkeeper until the 1960’s when the company he worked for closed its doors. He then worked odd jobs while taking civil service exams and finally obtained a position with the Michigan State Highway department where he continuously moved up through the ranks. Marge Roach worked part time in the local Pharmacy. Both Tom and Marge were active in the local community service organizations.

Most of Mr. Roach’s Aunts, Uncles and Cousins worked in the Factories of General Motors. Like his Father, he chose to take a different career path and did not end up in the factories.

Service to Country

Mr. Roach enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 18 and was trained as a Helicopter mechanic and door gunner. At the age of 19 he was shipped out to Vietnam where he proudly served with the 101st Airborne division. During his tour of duty Mr. Roach flew missions as a Helicopter Door Gunner to deliver supplies and pick up troops from hostile landing zones and received the Army Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in ground operations against hostile forces. He also received a temporary “Field Promotion” to Sergeant during his final months when he was put in charge of a team of soldiers of higher rank.

Mr. Roach is an honorably discharged, combat decorated, Veteran of the United States Army.

After serving his country he worked in retail management for several years until returning to college and obtaining an associate’s degree in Electronic Engineering Technology in 1983 from Midlands Technical College in Columbia South Carolina.. He also received the physics department’s “Student of the Year” award from the college. Jim also attended Saginaw Valley State College and Oakland University in Michigan. It was during this time period that his father passed away from lung cancer.

After graduating, Mr. Roach worked in the Nuclear Power industry for two years obtaining an auxiliary Reactor Operator certification at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in North Carolina.

When his mother became ill and could not care for herself he moved back to Michigan and assisted his mother during her last months. After the death of his mother Mr. Roach began his career with General Motors. Starting as an automotive instructor, contracted through the local community college, he taught in the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, Michigan and in many of the surrounding automotive assembly plants. While a contract Instructor he invented and received a U.S. Patent on a unique turbocharger electronic device. General Motors decided to hire him to help launch the Saturn Car Brand where he worked as an Advanced Service Engineer at Saturn during the development of the new car line and was responsible for designing the new vehicle to be easier to service and repair. This also included authoring sections of the service and owner manuals.

After the Launch of the Saturn Vehicle Mr. Roach was transferred back to the General Motors Technology Center in Warren, Michigan where he worked in instructional design and finally in the service research group as a Senior Research Engineer. He then prototyped a cognitive learning technology aimed at accelerating learning. Mr. Roach also implemented several improved technologies in the Instructional Design area including a unique way of printing learning materials on “interactive” paper. Mr. Roach then spearheaded efforts to analyze huge amounts of warranty data to find ways to reduce the cost per vehicle. (Similar to reduction of government waste.) His analytical approach helped identify potentially costly warranty issues before they grew into expensive issues. It was also during this time that he led the GM team that helped coordinate the various service departments and better serve the dealership technicians. This effort resulted in the diagnostic process called “Strategy Based Diagnosis”, still found in GM service and training manuals.

Mr. Roach then initiated a collaborative venture between General Motors and the U.S. military to share best practices and develop new approaches to fixing the complex automotive and military vehicles, and equipment and was one of the keynote speakers at the launch of the Pentagon’s ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) initiative in 1998. Mr. Roach represented General Motors in two collaborative Pentagon sponsored trials; The U.S. Army “Smart Truck” project and the U.S. Marine Corp Attack Helicopter Hellfire and TOW Missile project. Both of these projects resulted in improved diagnostic abilities of soldiers using Mr. Roach’s/GM’s method of delivery. In the General Motors side he also spearheaded the use of this methodology at the Cadillac Division and was featured at the 1998 New York Auto Show. Using leading edge “wearable” computers he also attracted the attention of Microsoft Corp. and was invited by both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to demonstrate his projects on stage with them.

In 1998 Mr. Roach received an early buy out from General Motors as part of its downsizing and moved to SW Florida to manage the Mentoring division of a technology company in Sarasota, FL. where he negotiated contracts with the U.S. Navy (Destroyer Weapons Systems), The U.S. Marine Corp (Harrier Jump Jet Engines) and the British Royal Navy (Navigational Radar Systems) to apply his approach to improving the efficiency of the maintainer personnel. During this time Mr. Roach was invited to speak on behalf of the U.S. Navy at the British Navy Maintenance Conference in the U.K. to demonstrate the leading edge technologies and methodologies that he had implemented in the U.S. Navy.

Mr. Roach is credited with the development and testing of an improved way of diagnosing complex electronic equipment for the British Royal Navy in the United Kingdom that is predicted to save millions in repair costs.

The technology company in Sarasota, FL suffered from the burst of the Tech Bubble in 2001 and while Mr. Roach’s mentoring division was profitable, the larger, computer hardware, part of the company sustained severe losses and was forced to close its doors.

It was during that time that Mr. Roach experienced the difficulty of loss of income and high COBRA insurance payments. Unable to continue paying the COBRA and never having any health issues, Mr. Roach was forced to take the gamble that many Americans face, which was to go without insurance for a few months until a new employer could be found. Also, like many Americans, that was the time when health care was needed the most. On his 50th birthday he was admitted to the hospital for the first time in his life for heart surgery.

The hospital bills and time not working depleted Mr. Roach’s retirement savings and forced him into medically driven bankruptcy. After the heart surgery Mr. Roach was turned down by the health insurance industry because of pre-existing conditions. Note that Mr. Roach’s surgery was preventative and he suffers no heart damage.

Mr. Roach met his wife Theresa while still living in Sarasota, FL. After a year courtship they married and he moved to Cape Coral, Fl. Theresa has been a kindergarten teacher on Pine Island, FL for over 25 years and is active in local community service organizations and recently reigned as “Mango Queen” at the local mango festival.

Mr. Roach then started and continues to manage his own Technology Consulting Company. His small company services local businesses as well as the U.S. Navy, British Navy and others.

Mr. Roach is active in local business and community organizations. He is a Director on his local Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of the Matlacha Mariners and a member of other community service organizations.

In their spare time Mr. and Mrs. Roach spend time exploring the local mangrove coastline in their kayaks. They also enjoy hiking the local parks and nature preserves and making videos of the beauty of natural Florida. Jim has a daughter and 2 grandchildren, Theresa has a son and 3 grandchildren.