James M. Goodrich

James M. Goodrich grew up in the thick of Southern California’s nascent surfing culture during the 1950s & ‘60s, an era teaming with opportunities. An early interest in the theater arts spawned a 50-year career in which he has worn a plethora of hats in the entertainment industry that began as a child actor on stage, television, and film and, as he describes, “…graduated to behind the camera,” working in such diverse capacities as, special effects, artist rep/management, Sr. VP Program Development at a television production company, concert promoter, and film producer, among others. These were the publicly recognized positions he held over the decades. The typically impermanent nature of media projects, especially in the world of film production and concert promotion, allowed Jim to pursue his many other lifelong passions of international yacht racing and cruising, skiing, surfing, and travel between projects throughout the years. The nexus of these activities became the catalyst for a lifetime of documented adventures, including the crossing of borders with contraband, which is the subject of the series of books he is currently writing. His introduction to smuggling began as a pre-teen when his parrot-loving mother involved him in her infrequent enterprise of bringing parrots up from Mexico. By his early teens, he had become an accomplished sailor in international yacht racing circles. Over the course of three decades Capt. Jim smuggled more than two dozen loads of contraband across international borders all over the world… mostly on board private yachts and always on board adventure… some of epic proportions. The inevitable forced retirement resulting from his late ‘90s arrest became a life-changing turning point. For the almost two decades since his release from Federal Prison he has taught sailing in the summers in SoCal and snow skiing in the winters in the High Sierra.