James M. Sellers, Jr.

Who was James M. Sellers, Jr.?

Colonel James McBrayer Sellers, Jr., served as Superintendent of Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri from 1973 to 1990.

James McBrayer Sellers, Jr., grew up on the campus of Wentworth Military Academy, a school founded by his maternal great-great-grandfather, Stephen G. Wentworth, and run by his paternal grandfather, Sandford Sellers, from 1880 to 1923, and by his father, James M. Sellers, from 1933 to 1960. Mac Sellers, Jr., was a 1945 Wentworth graduate. He served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy from 1946 to 1948, and later as an officer in the U.S. Army, first on active duty and then in the reserves. In 1952, he earned a B.A. from Yale University, where he was named the Distinguished Military Graduate, and in 1956, he received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he ranked in the top 5% of his class and was elected a Baker Scholar. Following his graduation, he spent a year on the Harvard Business School faculty as Research assistant to Georges Doriot, Professor of Manufacturing.

Sellers worked as Corporate Budget Director and served on the Executive Committee of the Vendo Corporation from 1958 to 1965, and then moved on to the Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company, first as Executive Vice-President/Treasurer and then as interim CEO. In 1968, he co-founded International Laser Systems along with company president and lifelong friend, laser pioneer William C. Schwartz, and raised the initial venture capital of $850,000 to get the company off the ground. He served as a Director of ILS from 1968 to 1983, and as Director of Schwartz Electro-Optics from 1984-1993.