John is presently the Career Coordinator at the College Internship Program (CIP) in Bloomington, IN, where he teaches and coaches neurodiverse students in job seeking, attainment, and success leading to independent living. He has worked in the field of autism since August of 2000 after careers in Education as a high school English and Careers Teacher and in Social Work. John has served as an Educational Consultant, Teacher, Social Worker, and Clinical Director of Mental Health at Loveland Academy, at the time Hawai’i’s oldest and largest private CARF Accredited Mental Health Day Treatment Center for Autism. At Loveland Academy, he supervised the daily work of 70+ staff and care and treatment of hundreds of neurodiverse individuals from 6-23 years of age. While John was at Loveland Academy, Loveland was responsible for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court case that moved the age of high school services for the disabled from 19 to 23 throughout the whole country.
John previously found success working in private business from owning auto parts stores and a machine shop to excavation, building, property development, a bakery, catering, and service dog training. He has been listed in Who’s Who in Business and in Education. In addition, John has been accepted by the Hawai’i judicial system as an Expert Witness in Social Work and Autism, testifying on behalf of neurodiverse students in dozens of cases.
John has served where needed in the civic community. He has coached football, softball, and weightlifting at the high school level. He was an active founder of Owen County Preservations, Inc, founder of Save the Tivoli Theater, first President of the Owen County Planning Commission, member of the Bloomington Area Arts Council and first John Waldron Art Center Boards that saved and preserved the JWAC and the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, and served four years on the Spencer-Owen School Board.
John has earned a Master’s of Social Work from Indiana University in Indianapolis, Indiana, a Teaching Degree and License (currently licensed in Indiana: English, Speech, Drama majors) from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and a BA in Public Speaking and English Language from Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
When he’s not educating neurodiverse students at the College Internship Program, you can find John cutting and splitting firewood on the back forty, traveling abroad with his daughters, restoring his 2000 Cadillac Deville, or playing with his two 170 pound Maremmas and his black Lab, Ele’ele’.
