After graduating High School in 1968, John joined the United States Air Force and served 2 tours in Vietnam. He graduated from Drexel University with a degree in Civil Engineering. During his 6-month co-op at Day and Zimmerman, John learned the basics of railroad track construction and went on to spend the six years at work in Washington D.C. on various Metro projects. After finishing the Rockville route in 1981, John relocated to New York City working for Slattery/Skanska as a Project Manager, where he worked in the city's subway system doing trackwork at nights and weekends under short track outages. During the "red tag" era in the mid 80's, John was responsible for hundreds of track workers in three boroughs. He estimated and managed numerous large scale rail projects, always finishing on time and on budget. John was promoted to Director of Track Division in 1995. Within the last 17 years John found it necessary to get specific railroad engineering training in order to keep pace with designers and changing technology. During John's 21-year career with Slattery, he managed many large scale track projects such as Hudson Bergen Phase I, JFK AirTrain, 63rd Street tunnel, the Empire Connection and reconstruction at the World Trade Center after the terrorist bomb in 1993. In 2002 John left Slattery and went to work for Balfour Beatty Rail (Marta & Metroplex) as Vice President. John was responsible for all field operations on all projects, such as the BART Airport Extension, Joliet Intermodal Facility, South Jersey LRT, Hudson Bergen Phase II, Baltimore Double Track and the reconstruction of passenger service at the World Trade Center. Following a closure of the Pittsburgh office in 2004, John decided to start Track Guy Consultants on March 20, 2004. He has performed inspection services in Puerto Rico, Detroit, Siberia, Power Plants and private industry. John has helped with many cost estimates and offers his 38 years of experience as a service to this great industry. He also served on the value engineering committee for the Phoenix Light Rail Project. John gives over 60 seminars on Trackwork per year and speaks at the University of Wisconsin three times a year. He also teaches FRA Track Safety Standards, Thermal Forces, Track Inspection, Maintenance, and Management. John has trained over 6,000 people in the last 7 years. John's web site has more details at www.trackguy.com.