John graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a BA in literature in 2017. During college, he studied abroad in Granada, Spain, taught empowerment to high school students in Japan, researched voluntourism in Cusco, Peru, and interned with a land trust in his hometown of Truckee, California.
Since graduating, John has lived abroad, and some of his work experience includes guiding backpacking trips up volcanoes in Nicaragua, translating for a guiding service in the Andes in Bolivia, teaching English at a Brazilian university as part of the Fulbright Program, and conducting surveys on marine life and working in a coral nursery in Honduras. He’s also mentored high school students on service-learning and adventure trips worldwide, including a literacy program in Belize, conservation programs in the Galapagos, and global health initiatives in Bali and the Dominican Republic.
John is a PADI SCUBA diving instructor, and he loves free diving, skiing, surfing, camping, playing soccer, skydiving, and being outside. He also loves reading and writing and is trying to publish a book. John has been to five continents and over thirty countries, and in addition to English, he speaks Spanish and Portuguese. He is also the president and co-founder of Full Belly Brasil, a 501c3 charitable organization helping solve world hunger and combating climate change. Their flagship programs are food recovery projects, but they also implement water projects, tree planting initiatives, and beach clean-ups. So far, they’ve provided over 250,000 meals to families in need and decreased CO2 emissions by around half a million pounds. John has led six programs with ARCC. He’s been a Gap Instructor for ARCC’s Hawaii/California gap semester in the fall of 2020, the Central American program in the fall of 2021, the East Africa 2023 program, and the Pacific Islands program in the spring of 2024. He has also led summer and custom programs for ARCC in Belize.
