Jim Leisy

Who is Jim Leisy?

Jim Leisy, Jr., is an artist, photographer, book editor and publisher.

He was born in Dallas, Texas in 1950. He attended both Bethel College and Stanford University, and earned a BA from Bethel College. He was editor of the Bethel Collegian.

In 1972 he joined the University of Chicago Press as a photographer. He also worked as a freelance photographer and art editor for the Chicago Review. After two years he left University of Chicago Press to become a field representative and field editor for Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, based in Philadelphia. In 1977, he was hired to acquire and edit college textbooks in the fields of chemistry and computer science for Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. In 1978, the company was acquired by Thomson International. He rose through the executive ranks at Thomson and became a vice-president of a company that specialized in publishing for information technology.

In 1985, he left The Thomson Corporation to found Franklin, Beedle & Associates Incorporated to publish college-level textbooks in the fields of computer science and information technology.

Through Franklin, Beedle & Associates he has edited and published numerous textbooks that have become defacto standards, which include: Carolyn Gillay's over 20 books on Microsoft DOS and Windows; Ernest Ackermann and Karen Hartman's textbooks on the use of the Internet; John Zelle's Python-based computer science 1 textbook; Paul Brians' Common Errors in English Usage; and Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum's Far from the Madding Gerund. Publications from his companies have earned numerous achievement awards and have been featured on Air America Radio, NPR, The Progressive, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and nearly all major US newspapers.