We are saddened to report that our colleague Dr. James Read Holland passed away in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on October 3rd from complications following surgery. Read was Ammonite’s expert on coalbed methane, and as an Ammonite consultant published several papers with Ammonite’s Skip Hobbs. His obituary in the Tuscaloosa News described Read as follows:
(Dr. Holland) grew up in a small railroad and farming community in the western part of Kentucky. He studied metallurgical engineering at the University of Kentucky. He attended the University of Sheffield, England as a Fulbright Scholar and received a doctorate in metallurgy at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Holland began his career working for the University of Kentucky at the University of Indonesia in Bandung on the island of Java. He then spent three years with the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio as a 1st Lieutenant and civilian. From 1961 through 1974 he worked at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then for Westinghouse Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1981 to lead the School of Mines and Energy Development at the University of Alabama, which was dedicated to studying the energy resources of Alabama and the southeastern states. He established some of the early research on coalbed methane gas and was one of the founders of the Coalbed Methane Association of Alabama. After nine years, he left the university to establish a consulting firm, J. R. Holland and Associates, Inc. He continued to travel with his wife, Mabs, and see the world, from Alaska to Australia, until his health prevented him.
In addition to his scientific interests, Read was an avid hunter and breeder and trainer of Labrador gun dogs. He will forever be remembered by Skip Hobbs’s sons as he sent them a black Labrador puppy named Rose when they were in grade school.