Our Guest Tuesday, July 21
Posted by Wes Brooks
on Jul 16, 2015
JOHN MCFARLAND, AMERICAN RED CROSS
John is the Executive Director of the 28-county Southeast Mississippi Chapter of the American Red Cross, after spending four decades as a Red Cross volunteer.
He is also vice president of The Real Estate Marketplace, a family-owned real estate brokerage founded by his wife, Margie.
John retired in September 2014 after 42 years with the Sun Herald, where he was the Marketing and Interactive Media Director, publisher of The Journal of South Mississippi Business, and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. He was a director of the Mississippi Press Association through 2014.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, John is a graduate of the University of Dayton and continued graduate studies at the University of Cincinnati, University of Southern Mississippi and Louisiana State University. He is a U.S. Army veteran, attaining the rank of Captain.
John is an active member and former Distinguished President of the Gulfport Kiwanis Club. He chaired the annual Kiwanis Student Leadership Conference for 12 years and is the recipient of the George Hixson Award from Kiwanis International. He was the 2009 Chairman of the Mississippi Coast Chamber of Commerce and helped create and still chairs the annual Salute to the Military. He continues to serve as a Coast Chamber board member, and helped launch the Mississippi Coast Film Office. John is a lifetime director and three-term president of the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra, Inc., where he helped launch such programs as the annual “Sounds by the Sea” free outdoor concerts and the Gulf Coast Symphony’s Youth Orchestra. He is a past president of the Biloxi Bay District/Scouting USA and twice served as General Campaign Chairman for the United Way of Harrison County.
Prior to his appointment as Executive Director, John spent 40 years as a volunteer with the American Red Cross South Mississippi chapter and has served seven terms on the Mississippi Coast chapter’s board of directors, and twice served three-year terms as board chairman. From 1992 to 1995 he was a member of the Red Cross State Service Council and from1995-1998 served as Mississippi Red Cross Service Council chairman. He has served as promotion and media liaison director for three Miss USA telecasts, the Nike Golf tour and the International Science and Engineering Fair, and currently serves as a starter-announcer for the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic, a PGA Champions Tour event. He served on the Tourism and Small Business committees of the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal after Hurricane Katrina and co-chaired the Tourism Initiative for the Gulf Coast Business Council. He is past chair of the Harrison County Beautification Commission and currently a director of the INFINITY® Science and Education Center at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center, a director of the Gulf Coast Business Council, and a director of the Knight Nonprofit Center. He was also chairman of the Gulf Coast Regional Tourism Partnership, a non-profit, regional tourism development and marketing corporation administering millions of dollars in tourism marketing grants from BP following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
An alumnus of Leadership Mississippi, class of 1982, John was the 1999 recipient of the James K. Batton Excellence Award for Community Leadership, the 2002 Silver Medal from the Mississippi Coast Advertising Federation, the 2006 Laurel Wreath Award for community service presented by Regions Bank, the 2008 “4EverYoung” Award presented by Coast Young Professionals, the 2012 Pat Santucci “Spirit of the Coast” Award presented by the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce, and the 2013 Humanitarian of the Year honors awarded by the American Red Cross.