IAM is saddened to learn of the passing of James W. “Jim” Westbrook, a more than 50-year veteran of the international moving industry who was inducted into the IAM Hall of Honor in 2015.
An update from his son Mark Westbrook of Mitchell Overseas Movers advised that Jim Westbrook died at age 93 and that his father never stopped loving the moving industry, recalling that even in his final years, Jim would speak of customers, shipments, agents, military moves, colleagues, and industry issues “as though he were headed back to work the next morning,” Mark said.
Born March 21, 1933, in Omaha, Nebraska, Westbrook served four years of active duty in the U.S. Air Force before beginning his household goods moving career as an owner-operator with Imperial Van & Storage in Long Beach, California. He went on to work for Smyth Worldwide Movers before forming Apache Overseas Removals & Forwarding in England in 1978. After a period with Chipman International, he founded Sentinel International Forwarding in 1989 and later served as U.S. military personal property adviser for Interdean International in Germany before retiring in 1999, then rejoining Sentinel as owner and president. He also served as German/European representative for the Household Goods Forwarding Association of America (now IAM) and as president of the German chapter of the National Defense Transport Association and was a longtime member of the IAM Ethics Council.
Mark Westbrook wrote that his father’s Hall of Honor induction was one of the proudest moments of his professional life and that the family remains deeply grateful for that recognition. “Being a mover was never simply what he did,” Mark wrote. “It was who he was.”