92, passed away on March 29th, 2022 unexpectedly in Jupiter, Florida. Brought up through
the 10th grade near Detroit and finally Grosse Point, Jim then moved with his mother East to Madison and eventually to Guilford, Connecticut. He finished his last two years of high school at Phillips Academy Andover after which he attended Yale's Engineering School. While there he was very active in extracurricular activities serving as President of the Chi Psi fraternity, and President of the lnterfraternity Council. He was elected by his classmates one of two senior class officers (he served in that capacity for 35 years). He was also head of the Whiffenpoofs, the oldest college men's singing group. After Yale he attended and graduated from the Harvard Business School with an MBA in 1953. Between his first and second years, he married Barbara Gibbins. After Harvard he received a direct commission as an officer in the US Army Finance Corporation, where he ran a test to put the US Army on modern financial accounting (double entry bookkeeping). The methods devised in the test were adopted throughout the Army and saved billions of dollars. He then began a job with the Dewey and Almy Chemical Division of W.R. Grace and Co. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he later became the Chief Financial Officer. He turned around three factories in Kentucky and went on to become President of the Polyfibron Division of Grace, comprising five businesses and ten factories in the US and Canada. He left Grace to buy a company of his own, which he did in 1970. It became the Delta Chemical Company, manufacturer of industrial and specialty chemicals located in Searsport, Maine. He owned the company for 22 years selling it in 1992. In 1988 Jim and Barbara bought what became Why Not Farm, a Vermont dairy farm.
Over the course of these years, Jim remained active at Yale, where in addition to serving as class officer he served on the Board of Directors of all three alumni organizations and as an adviser to the President on a capital campaign. He made possible the James E. Duffy Study Room for Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery. In 1990 he was awarded Yale's highest alumni service award, the Yale Medal. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association. During many of these years he served on the vestry of Trinity Church Boston, the 'Sconset Chapel, and Christ Memorial Chapel, Jupiter Island, Florida. Over the years he also served on the Visiting Committee of the Dana-Farber Cancer Center. For many years he volunteered at the Martin County Correction Institute, a Florida maximum security prison where he worked with prisoners to prepare themselves to leave prison, particularly in how to obtain a job and hold on to it.
Jim is survived by his wife Barbara Gibbins Duffy, his children, Lincoln, Christopher, Sarah Duffy, grandchildren, Jessica Mayer, Benjamin Duffy, Celia Conaghan, Max Duffy, Jenny Newman, and great grandson, Logan Yatsko.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to Dana-Farber at www.dana-farber.org/gift.
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