James Mack Gerstley was an executive for the U.S. Borax and Chemical Corporation from 1937 to 1961. Gerstley was born in 1907 and raised in London, England before attending Cambridge University. Gerstley left Cambridge and moved to San Francisco in 1929 to work for the Great Western Electrochemical Company. In 1937 he became assistant to the president of Pacific Coast Borax Company and eventually became president in 1950. In 1962 he retired and returned to Northern California and became a trustee of Pomona College as well as the member and chairman of the San Francisco Asian Art Commission (1963-1989). In this interview, Gerstley discusses his childhood in London, WWI, Cambridge, California in the early 1930s, San Francisco social life, Bransten, Fleishhacker, Levison, Lilienthal families in the 1930s, WWII, Los Angeles in the 1930s, Pacific Coast Borax Company and the U.S. Borax and Chemical Corporation, being president of the Death Valley Hotel Company, Pomona College, Asian Art Museum Foundation, securing Brundage collection for San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, work as chairman of the Western Jewish History Center and the Friends of The Bancroft Library and the Atherton Library.