Jim Forsythe's Military Experience, Business Leadership, and Community Service
A business entrepreneur focused on fixing our economy
Jim’s entrepreneurial career began in 2003 when he became part owner of a small, successful aerospace company, Cobalt Solutions, LLC. As Director of Research, Jim brokered deals with clients at home and overseas, and performed cutting edge research for numerous agencies and companies. The company’s software product, which uses computational fluid dynamics to compute airflow over aircraft, is heavily used in the defense industry. As an entrepreneur, Jim’s experiences with government regulation, the tax code, and big bureaucracy have reinforced his belief in the urgent need to reform and downsize government.
Experience grounded in patriotism
Jim Forsythe’s diverse experiences in military, business, and academics have instilled in him a deep love of this country, a fierce passion to defend and renew the principles for which it stands, and the leadership and knowledge to get it done. After leaving the active duty Air Force in 2003, he and his wife, Sue, chose to live and raise their children here in New Hampshire, not only to be near family, but also to embrace the independent spirit of the most free state in the country.
The foundation for Jim’s love of country and freedom were laid at Virginia’s Episcopal High School, from which he graduated in 1986. While at Episcopal, Jim learned to speak Russian and traveled to the Soviet Union twice, where his firsthand experience of the oppression of the people by their government instilled a deep conviction in the value of freedom that the United States has treasured since our revolution.
Serving America’s Air Force
In keeping with his deeply held patriotism, Jim next decided to serve in the military while attending college. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca, NY on an Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corp (AFROTC) scholarship, earning his B.S. in Applied and Engineering Physics and a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering within four and a half years. Jim served as the detachment commander his senior year and was accepted to the highly selective Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program.
It was also at Cornell that Jim met his future wife Sue, who was also in the ROTC program. She earned a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering before she entered active duty.
Jim and Sue were first assigned to Wichita Falls, TX, where Jim attended pilot training, and Sue became a civil engineer. Jim was surrounded by classmates and instructors from Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Canada, and the United States. After graduation, he received an assignment to fly KC-135s and wound up refueling his European classmates serving in support of operations in Bosnia.
As a KC-135 pilot and aircraft commander, Jim received three aerial achievement medals for combat support operations during his three tours in Saudi Arabia enforcing the no fly zone over Iraq, two tours in France and Italy in support of Bosnia, and launching off alert for Somalia. By the end of his flying career he had earned his senior pilot wings with more than 1,500 flight hours.
Educator and problem solver
In between combat support sorties, Jim began work on a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University. The U.S. Air Force Academy offered him a professorship, which he began in 1998. He completed his Ph.D. in 2000 while teaching full time and flying for a flight test engineering course and a low level navigation course while at the Academy. Based on superb teaching and research skills, he advanced to an Associate Professor position in record time. He also earned the Air Force Award in Science and Engineering, and the Frank J. Seiler award for research for his ground-breaking computational fluid dynamics research predicting aircraft stability and performance.
In 2003, after twelve years of active duty service, Jim accepted an Air Force Reserve research position with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and was also appointed as an adjunct professor at Arizona State University.
Community Involvement and Focus on Education
With his wife and homeschooled kids, Kate and Connor, Jim currently lives in Strafford, NH, where he chairs the Strafford town GOP, the Strafford Taxpayer’s Coalition and was the Cub Master of the town’s Cub Scout pack. The Forsythes have also been active in the school choice community: Sue assisted in the formation of a private scholarship foundation in Colorado, while Jim co-founded a school choice advocacy group in New Hampshire.