It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of a founding member of the Cross community, James A. King, Jr. Jim King Jr. was the second president of J.A. King, which became Cross Precision Measurement.
Born on July 1, 1933 in Washington, DC, Jim Jr. lived in Charlotte, NC, and moved to Greensboro in March of 1939 with his parents Millie and Jim. The same year, his father, James A. King Sr., founded J.A. King & Co., an industrial scale distributor.
After attending the military boarding school Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, FL, Jim went on to receive a BS degree from North Carolina State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1955.
He met the love of his life, Joan Hester, at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant near UNCG where Joan went on to receive a degree in teacher education. Jim and Joan married in March 1956 in Greensboro and began “a two-year honeymoon” while Jim served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Air Force at RAF Alconbury near Cambridge, England.
Jim and Joan came back to the US for Jim to join the family business designing and building custom scale systems as the first of what would become many engineers for J.A. King & Co. Jim was an innovator – in 1958 a distributor designing and building custom scales was virtually unheard of. In 1969, Jim Jr. became the second President, taking over from his father and he became Chairman of the Board in 1971.
J.A. King was sold to Cross Company in 2018, becoming the Precision Measurement Group of the 100% employee-owned company.
Jim Jr. also served as a President of the International Society of Weighing & Measurement (ISWM), President of the Scale Dealer’s Association (SDA), and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) before he retired in 1999 ending an incredible 40-year career in the weighing industry that he so loved.
Jim Jr. was a stalwart of his community. He was a long-time member of the Piedmont Investors’ Club. He served in the Crescent Rotary in Greensboro as a Paul Harris Fellow, and after moving with Joan to Madison Mayodan in 1986, he joined the Madison Mayodan Rotary. In Madison, he served on the Library Board, helped boil peanuts with the Methodist Men in the Methodist Church and later joined the Moravian Church. He was a zealous and proud member of several professional organizations, including the Aircraft Engine Historical Society, Cattlemen’s Association, and North Carolina Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR).
Jim Jr.’s influence is still felt at Cross Company, even by those who didn’t know him. He believed passionately in one of our key cornerstones – character, integrity and professionalism – saying that professionalism is “Knowing from knowledge and experience what is required, doing it, and taking responsibility for doing it.”
All Cross associates send their deepest condolences to the King family in this poignant time.
