John is an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. He is an Ambassador for the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce where he recently received Ambassador of the Month recognition. He is secretary of the Rocky Mountain Franchise Association (Burger King). And now, he is the also the Founder of SeniorFriendlyGolf.com.
In 1999 John retired from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service where in 1985 he helped roll out the Burger King franchise world wide for our Army and Air Force facilities. His first duty station was Giessen, Germany and he concluded his AAFES career, after some duty time at the U.S. Air Force Academy, at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While managing the Burger King facility at Fort Carson, his unit was once number one, with 33% bottom line, out of the over 200 AAFES BK restaurants in the United States and abroad.
From 1980 to 1985 John developed a new restaurant format with "Chilico's Chili & Otherstuffs" in Arlington, Texas. The restaurant was a chili parlor with gourmet burgers and Tex-Mex type offerings. The venture was closely tied to the international competitive chili cooking culture. He has judged three world championships in Terlinqua, Texas.
From 1968 to 1980 John averaged a promotion every two years with Alcon Laboratories, Inc., an ophthalmology and dermatology pharmaceutical company in Fort Worth, Texas. While at Alcon he held many sales and management positions including product manager in the International Division. He left the company as the national sales manager of Alcon's Specialty Products division when the 1980 recession forced out middle managers nationwide. His passion for competitive chili cooking prompted his next career move.
From his graduation at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1962 with a Bachelors of Business Administration degree, until 1968 he was a retail advertising sales representative for the Miami Herald, the advertising manager for The Casa Grande Dispatch, and a sales representative for Southland Life Insurance Company in the Dallas company's Phoenix branch.
John served in the U.S, Navy aboard the USS Pine Island AV12 and as a postal clerk in Adak, Alaska.
John has been married to Marilynn M. Darling for 33 years. Marilynn is a math teacher at Cheyenne Mountain High School. John has three sons, all of which are Eagle Scouts. John N. is a Registered Respiratory Therapist & Extracorporeal Life Support Specialist at Children's Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Michael is the Director of the Internet Division of Education Logistics, Inc. and President of Inetekk.com, Inc. He is also the webmaster for SeniorFriendlyGolf.com. John's youngest son, Eric, is completing his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Rice University in Houston.