Obituary of Susan M Zinga - James

Susan M. (Zinga) James of Basking Ridge died on July 2nd, 2013 after a two year battle with breast cancer. Susan was born on September 16th, 1956 in Racine, Wisconsin. She grew up in Illinois and California and completed her undergraduate degree and her Master's Degree in Economics from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Susan had a successful and varied career in the electric utility industry for more than thirty years. After receiving her Master's degree, Susan began her career as an analyst at Public Service Electric Group (PSE&G) of Indiana. She became an expert on the regulatory rate filing process and she frequently testified in front of the utility regulatory agency in Indiana. Susan's next move was to Electronic Data Systems (EDS) utility division in Atlanta, GA. Here, Susan began to develop her expertise in Demand Side Management, which involved working with utilities to project future demand for electricity decades into the future, by utilizing sophisticated statistical and computer modeling programs. After a few years with EDS, Susan joined Southface Energy Institute in Atlanta as the Director of Energy Policy. Southface is a very innovative non-profit organization focused on promoting and developing green building techniques for the commercial and residential construction industries in the Southeastern U.S. After she left Southface, Susan leveraged all of her prior experiences to start her own solo utility consulting practice. She focused on helping utilities implement programs focused on Demand Side Management and Renewable Portfolios, which dealt with the mandated requirement for electric utilities to generate an increasing percentage of their power from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydro-power. She had many clients in the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands. After a transfer with her husband to New Jersey in 2003 Susan began working for Applied Energy Group in Long Island as a utility analyst in their consulting group. Besides her many professional accomplishments, Susan had many additional talents and interests. Her greatest passion was travel and she and her family made many trips over the years to a variety of U.S. destinations usually involving a visit for some hiking or canoeing in a National or State Park. Additionally, there were many trips overseas to Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Caribbean, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, and Switzerland. Each of these trips involved spending time in the outdoors whether it was hiking in Bryce or Zion canyons in Utah, walking the mountains of Grindelwald, Switzerland, or exploring the rainforests of Taman Negara Park in Malaysia. Time was also spent visiting the great museums, and especially the zoos of each locale. Susan could also read and speak French, which came in handy on more than a few trips. Susan was also a talented seamstress, often sewing her daughter's ornate Halloween costumes. She loved to cook, read classic literature, eat great food, attend Broadway theatre shows and Metropolitan Opera performances in NYC, and complete the NYT crossword puzzles. In recent years, Susan was a first grade CCD teacher at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church and she amassed a large collection of religious puppets which she used in her teaching to help her young students learn the basics of right and wrong. Susan leaves behind her lovely daughter Tatiana James and her beloved husband of seventeen years, Mark James. She is survived by her mother Marianne Zinga, and her sister Lori Ann Adams, but is predeceased by her father William Zinga and her younger brother Bill Zinga. She also leaves behind a brother-in-law and sister-in-law and four nephews from her side of the family as well as an aunt and many cousins. She was a wonderful and loving mother, wife, aunt, and friend. She will be dearly missed by the entire family. Visitation will be held on Friday, July 5, 2012 from 1:00 - 5:00 pm at Gallaway and Crane Funeral Home, 101 S. Finley Ave, Basking Ridge. Funeral Mass will be held on Saturday, July 6, 2013 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Bernardsville, 10:00 am. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery, Basking Ridge. In lieu of flowers please consider making a donation to one of her favorite charities: Doctors Without Borders (address at 333 7th Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001-5004); St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (address at 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105-3678); or Catholic Charities U.S.A. (address at 2050 Ballenger Avenue, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314). For more information please contact the Funeral Home at 908-766-0250 or to light an online condolence candle visit our website www.gcfuneralhome.com.