Dr. James Patrick (Jim) Reilly passed away peacefully at Bishop Place retirement community in Pullman, WA, on July 29. He was 92 years old.

Jim was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, on November 30, 1933. His father was a coal miner and his mother was a homemaker. He grew up hunting and fly fishing in the mountains and streams of western Pennsylvania. One of his highlights of his youth was when his father took him to see Jackie Robinson play baseball in Pittsburgh. He remained a die-hard baseball fan all his life.

He attended Penn State University and graduated with a degree in mining engineering. He met his future wife, Faith Milliron, while in college and married in 1956. She died in 1998. He never remarried but developed a close relationship with Carol Stomberg of Las Cruces, New Mexico, who passed away in 2025.

Jim enlisted in the Army in 1958. His service included time in Libya surveying and teaching. In 1967 he moved with his family to Columbus, Ohio where he earned a PhD in Geodetic Science from The Ohio State University in 1973. The family moved to Iowa where Jim began as an assistant professor of engineering at Iowa State University. They bought a small acreage in the country where he and Faith gardened and began to accumulate dogs, including two family Golden Retrievers and six Basset Hounds that they showed at AKC events. They later added Welch Corgis to their growing dog family.

After leaving Iowa State Jim began work with several international survey instrument companies and moved to Colorado, New York, and Florida before returning to academia in 1990 as Professor and Chair of the Surveying Department at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He served as president of the American Congress of Surveying and Mapping in 2000-2001 and wrote a regular column on practical surveying in Point of Beginning (POB) magazine. He lived in Las Cruces for more than 30 years before moving to Pullman, WA, in 2023 to be closer to his son, Mike.

Jim was an avid hobbyist from his early days. Over the years he collected stamps and coins, grew French wine grapes and made wine, raised and showed dogs, grew bearded Irises and African violets, became an expert at clock repair, collected and repaired old British sports cars, and became president of the local Eagles chapter in Las Cruces.

Jim was proceeded in death by his wife Faith, brother Robert and his sons Jim and Jeff. He is survived by his sons Mike and Sean, daughters-in-law Susan and Mylac, sister-in-law Jan and five grandchildren (Shannon, Clare, Liam, Erin and Keven).

Nothing gave Jim more pleasure than hearing from his family and watching Los Angeles Dodgers baseball. He will be missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him.