Parallelism "was able to" - Is this sentence correct?

Question

Is the following sentence correct?

"He was always able to understand complex situations immediately and to find good solutions right away."

To me it sounds odd and should be:

"He was always able to understand complex situations immediately and found good solutions right away."

Any grammar rules for such constructions?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Nope. The second one is the odd-sounding, almost painful one. The first retains parallelism between 'was always able to understand' and '(was always able) to find' The second sentence, while grammatical, jerks the reader between the present and a sudden introduction of the past tense.