Blog Post

Meet Jim Affeldt – Class of 2020

Eileen Balance, ’15 • November 6, 2020

Jim is a native of Portsmouth, VA, but only lived there briefly before his family moved to Winston-Salem, NC where he lived until his college years. 

Jim graduated from Virginia Tech in 1982 with a degree in Architecture. He was privileged to be able to study in Europe during the summer of his fourth year. Jim’s first permanent job brought him to the Tidewater area after college. He worked for two local architectural firms for about ten years prior to getting a job with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Norfolk. He retired from his civil service senior architect position in December of 2019. Jim feels that he had a full and rewarding career with specialties including Family Housing, Sustainable Design and management of large overseas design projects in places such as Rota, Spain; Vicenza and Sigonella, Italy; Djibouti, Africa; Keflavik, Iceland and Lossiemouth, Scotland.

Jim has always enjoyed gardening, planting and harvesting home-grown vegetables and at one time considered pursuing a career in landscape architecture but decided on the field of architecture. He is now adjusting to being retired and this gives him an opportunity to connect with his earlier interest.

Even though the Class of 2020 met with unusual circumstances, he feels that they had already received most of the benefits of in-person teaching before classes continued on Zoom. He enjoyed learning from other classmates with the Zoom presentations and felt that everyone did a fantastic job.

  Jim jumped right into volunteering toward his fifty-hour assignment by helping to set up the Virginia Flower and Garden Expo at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. He also volunteered at the Weyanoke Wildlife Sanctuary which he enjoyed because it is almost in his back yard. He is hoping in the future birds and wildlife will visit his yard. He has already seen turtles, snakes, skinks, a groundhog, foxes, birds and butterflies in the short time he has been living in West Ghent. Most of his remaining hours were earned at the Butterfly House at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

Jim will continue to volunteer at the Butterfly House and Weyanoke Wildlife Sanctuary but he is interested in pursuing many other approved projects such as the plant sale at the Stockley Gardens Art Festival, Lafayette Wetlands Partnership and the Significant Tree Program.

Jim lives with his partner, Larry, and a 12-year-old spoiled Maltese, Sophie. He feels fortunate that both his parents are still living in their mid-90s in a retirement community in Winston-Salem, NC.

When Jim is not volunteering with the Norfolk Master Gardeners he enjoys traveling, visiting museums and working out at the YMCA. He also enjoys bike riding, volunteering at church, walking his dog, home improvement projects, meeting new neighbors, reading and watching movies on Netflix. Welcome, Jim, to the Norfolk Master Gardeners! Be sure to introduce yourself to Jim when you see him.
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