Age is irrelevant when you regularly run and work out, when softball doubleheaders are a common activity in your life.

James R. White

It’s irrelevant when your city needs your unique skill set to help guide it through a deadly war.

So, Jim White was ready to serve with a full-time job again in Indianapolis emergency management as he approached his 73rd birthday on July 8.

“The city called the first part of March and asked me to come back as an advisor,” says the Richmond native and two-time graduate from Indiana University East.

The advice he offers, the new war he’s fighting, is more personal now: COVID-19 is the opponent and he is “in the age bracket that is most susceptible.”

It has proven to be a devastating disease for some seniors and those who already have pre-existing health conditions. It’s a “scary disease, so unlike anything else,” White says.

So scary because no one knows exactly when it will end.

Indianapolis was prepared to respond because of the plans White helped develop as director of Emergency Management for Indianapolis earlier in the 2000s.

“We did expect something like this, but nobody expected the intensity,” he says. “The Avian bird flu was on our radar. We had a response plan, but never had to use it.”

That influenza reached its apex in 2005 and made governments around the world develop plans to battle it. “Once we figured out that this (COVID-19) was much more, we reacted well. We have done a good job,” White says.

The general public most often hears the term “emergency response” with issues such as floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters. “Those are pretty easy now,” White says. “You can see the end to them. We can’t see the end. We don’t know if the initial surge is going to be it.”

Things certainly have leveled off, but he foresees a rebound of the disease after more businesses and factories ramp up and children go back to school. “We are trying to be proactive,” White says. “We think we are going to have another surge.”

So, social distancing and personal protective devices will remain a needed reality for longer than most people think, he foresees, “at least until we get a vaccine.”

With the state’s biggest population density, Indianapolis never reached its capacity for emergency rooms, for hospital beds or ventilators.

“We built a 100-bed alternative hospital site,” White says. “We never had to use it, but we’ve had it in our hip pockets.”

He cited strong positive numbers that had happened by late June: Hospital admissions were flat and ambulance runs have dropped dramatically and primarily are for normal things (such as accidents, falls and heart attacks).

“All things considered, Indianapolis did a good job, the state did a good job,” he says. “We made some mistakes and learned from them.”

White jests that he drinks a lot of coffee and gives suggestions: “Sometimes they accept them.”

Actually, they accept a lot of them. So much so that he’s been hired for the rest of 2020. He did slow down from a full-time schedule for the first five weeks to a two-day workweek now.

“I feel like I am value-added. I (already) know most and they know me,” he says. “They don’t have to accept my suggestions. It’s their show. My job is to provide guidance and information and to be a sounding board. That has worked out well.”

He thought the days were over when his family would ask him: “When are you going to retire?”

He finally had in May 2019. Now, he admits it’s his goal again.

But his city called for his help again and he had the time and the desire to answer that call. “I think it is my civic duty to help the city, the state and the country I live in. That’s the way I am built.”

He’s glad to be involved: “I don’t want to just read the newspaper and scan the Internet. I am happy I can help. It’s important.”

He believes the federal government has gotten a bad rap for shortages in personal protection equipment: “That’s a hospital’s responsibility,” he says. “The fault was primarily local.”

For-profit hospitals are always trying to cut costs, he explains: “So they got caught short with PPEs. It took the manufacturers time to catch up.”

Something as major as COVID-19 requires community and private sectors to work together.

White knows about working together in his half-century journey in law enforcement, leadership and education. He started taking classes in the fall of 1970 at the East Indiana Center, the forerunner of IU East and was part of the university’s first graduating class. “IU East was a critical component of my half-century career,” he says.

His career evolved, he says, something that happened in many other leadership roles of his illustrious career:

• Commander in the state patrol.
• Colonel in the National Guard.
• Working in security management for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
• Investigator in the Iraq War.
• Deputy director at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in Plainfield.
• Original member of the state police SWAT team.
• Lecturer at IUPUI’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

He often gives talks about crisis leadership. “It’s more important today than ever before. There are a lot of good leaders out there,” he says, noting many are in the armed services. “The military understands leadership. It’s critically important in a crisis.”

White has traveled to every corner of the state and much of the world.

He plays softball. He runs. He volunteers at the Indiana State Police Museum in Indianapolis.

“I try to do something physical every day,” says White, who lives with his wife, Barbara Ann, about 10 minutes from Indianapolis International Airport.

“I am fortunate. I went to work every day excited,” White says. “I got to do in life what I wanted to do. IU East played a huge part in that.”

He came back to IU East to earn a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement in 1979 and then earned a master’s degree in education from Butler University. His military education was extensive, too, including attending Tufts University as an Army fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

White was assigned to work at the 1987 Pan Am Games in Indianapolis, including the closing ceremony.

Six years later, he worked security at the 1993 World University Games in Buffalo. “The result of having those experiences was that I worked my way up,” he says.

“Up” to the pinnacle of worldwide sports competition when he was asked to help provide security at the centennial Olympic Games, held in the summer of 1996 in Atlanta.

White believes his IU East degrees helped inspire him to achieve big things.

He certainly did … and now is doing more in the battle against COVID-19.