James “Jim” Norval Giles

June 8, 1935 – March 2, 2025

James (Jim) Norval Giles was born in Wilmar, California, to James Lamont Giles and Opal Odessa Giles (nee Dockens) on the 8th of June in 1935.  Sadly, Jim died on 2 March 2025.  He had lived in Quilcene, Washington, for over 40 years, and he died from dementia at the age of 89 years and 9 months at Liberty Shores Memory Care in Poulsbo, Washington.

Jim grew up in southern California.  He expressed his lifelong love of nature and biking almost immediately.  One of the stories he would tell about himself as a child was when he would leave the tent (yes, a tent) his parents lived in for several years and venture down into the local arroyo to explore and play.   When he was 9 years old his parents bought him a bicycle for his birthday, and thus another lifelong love, of cycling, was started.

Jim went to college at CalTech, paid in part by the Air Force ROTC, and went into the USAF when he graduated from college in the mid 1950s.  He was then stationed in Libya.  While in Libya he roamed the desert, coastal beaches, and towns on a motorcycle when he could, taking pictures and learning about the ancient ruins and modern cities there.  Coming home from Libya, he bought a car and traveled around Europe.  He loved to explore.

Soon after Jim came back from Libya he married Sharon P. Stokes on the 16th of December, 1961, in Los Angeles, CA.  They had three children, Rikke (born 1962), Lawrence (born 1964) and Malena (born 1965).  Jim and his family moved to the area around what has become known as Silicon Valley, California, in the mid 1960s and lived there for about 15 years.  He and his children took up horseback riding during this time, as well as hiking.

Jim worked for several companies, including Lockheed and Fairchild Semiconductor, before joining some friends and acquaintances he’d met at work in starting their own company.  The company he helped start (in 1969) was Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); a company that has grown huge and is still going strong.  In the early 1980s, Jim retired and moved to a remote property in Quilcene, Washington, with his family.  In retirement he did all kinds of things, such as managing gardens and fields and building trails and bridges over creeks around his ranch, writing computer code, dark room photography, working on photos and graphics for computers, biking across the USA, and hiking up all the huge south to north mountain ranges in the USA.  Through all of this he took excellent care of his family until dementia took away his ability to do so in his early to mid 80s.

Jim was known for his love of nature, his love of overcoming challenges, his friendliness, his remarkable intelligence and his amazing support for his family.  He adored his wife and children.  He, and his wife, Sharon, raised their severely autistic daughter, Malena, at home.  Malena has lived with her parents for her whole life, and Jim took care of her up until his dementia made that impossible.  

When he and Sharon were just starting their family, and for a decade or so after that, Jim sailed small boats, partaking in boat races all around California’s lakes and ocean bays.  He would take his family with him, setting up camp on a local campground for them before he raced.  

Jim and his son, Lawrence, undertook long horse rides, with camping, in the mountains of California using the family’s two horses, Charlie and Ginger.  These rides were greatly enjoyed by both the humans (Jim and Lawrence) and the horses!  

Jim hiked up the south to north mountain ranges (the Sierras/Cascades, Rocky Mountains and Appalachians) of the United States; taking a few weeks out of every summer for several years to conquer each mountain range.   He also rode his bike across the United States, from the east coast of Maine to the west coast of Washington.  

For many years Jim rode his bicycle from the border between California and Nevada, across Nevada, to Utah.  This bike ride was/is called the OatBran.  On the last day of the ride, the riders had the option to ride to the top of Wheeler Peak; a mountain on the border of Nevada and Utah.  Jim, along with a few other riders, always opted to ride up Wheeler Peak.  Jim rode a recumbent bike, which could obtain very high speeds on a downhill incline.  He would ride to the top of the mountain, a very strenuous and difficult journey and then zoom down to the bottom of the mountain, passing everyone and delighting in the ride.  His family thought he was saying, ‘Catch me if you can,’ as he raced passed everyone.

Jim did another bike ride, the Tour de Blast, occasionally with his daughter, Rikke, up the volcano in Washington named Mount St Helen’s.  He would ride very hard to get to the top of the mountain and then just fly down past his daughter.  She would turn around and join him, and they’d reach speeds of 50 mph or more on their recumbent bikes.  They had such fun doing this together!

Sadly, Jim’s parents, step-parents and most of his siblings have passed on already.  Jim leaves behind his wife, Sharon, and his much adored children, Rikke, Lawrence and Malena, as well as his beloved son-in-law, Randy.  In memoriam please consider going to some place in nature, like a mountain, or a valley, or the coast, and saying his name.  He’d really be happy; he loved those places.