Meet Bermuda District Supervisor Jim Ingle - Chesterfield Observer

Jim Ingle ASH DANIEL

Jim Ingle was only 10 years old when he landed his first paying job delivering the Potomac News, a daily newspaper in northern Virginia, in 1979.

That fact somehow eluded the district manager who hired him. Only after visiting Ingle’s house to pick up payments the carrier had collected from his customers did he learn the boy was two years too young to have his own paper route.

“My dad said, ‘You gave him the job. You take it from him. I’m not doing it,’” Ingle recalled during an interview last week.

The district manager thought about it, realized Ingle was reliable and decided to let him keep the route.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s 12,” the man told Ingle’s father.

Ingle turns 51 this month and he’s still happiest when he’s busy – which he figures to be for at least the next four years. He was elected in November to represent the Bermuda District on the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors.

“I feel like I’ve been prepared by everything I went through in my life – being in good places and bad places, understanding how to get myself out of bad spots so I can help others get out,” said Ingle, whose day job is senior project manager for the Chesterfield-based demolition contractor R.J. Smith Cos.

“I’ve been very blessed overall in life, but I’ve also experienced being at the bottom [financially]. My family definitely had a time after my parents split up where the church brought us Christmas presents and without that we wouldn’t have had any. I think that helps me understand the most important thing: It doesn’t matter what your position in life is today; it matters what you’re going to do about it so you can change your life for the future.”

Ingle worked as the manager of a Prince George County mobile home park while putting himself through Richard Bland College, where he earned an associate’s degree in business and compiled the 3.25 grade-point average needed for automatic admission into the College of William & Mary.

At the same time he pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics, Ingle held down three part-time jobs.

Since graduating from William & Mary in 1992, he has built an eclectic resume: managing a rent-to-own store and a lumber yard, then moving into sales and purchasing before accepting his current position with R.J. Smith three years ago.

“I could be doing something as fun as installing a toilet or sitting down with somebody who is planning a new building and wants us to do the site work and construction,” Ingle said. “My day can fall anywhere between that … and generally does.”

Before he decided to run for office last year, Ingle was best known in Chesterfield for successfully managing a different kind of project: construction of a 212-foot flagpole on his company’s property near the intersection of Interstate 95 and state Route 288.

Ingle’s boss, Richard Smith, initially planned to build the flagpole to 180 feet, the maximum height permitted under county regulations. Smith and his wife, Monique, settled on 212 feet as a symbolic reference to their personal and corporate philosophy of “doing just a little more.”

It’s based on “212: The Extra Degree,” a bestselling motivational book.

Getting an exception for a 212-foot flagpole required Ingle to navigate county bureaucracy and work with several of the same staff members who now report to him.

“I had no idea how big a project that was going to be,” he said. “It certainly took on a life of its own.”

When he’s not at work, Ingle’s life is mostly spent with family: his wife Jennifer, son Jacob and stepson Jon Hall. He also has a brother, Tim, and sisters Barby and Marby, who was adopted by Ingle’s parents when they lived in Thailand in the early 1970s.

“I’d love to say I’ve balanced [work and family] perfectly, but I’m sure my wife would beg to differ,” Ingle added with a chuckle. “She keeps me grounded and she’s very good at that.”