After college John began working for GES, a large national general services event contractor, getting hands-on experience running crews to set up large-scale tradeshows, conventions, exhibits, fairs & festivals. John was eventually promoted to Production Manager. After a few years, a college friend asked John to join a small start-up to help develop an interactive video game. John agreed to join, and that video game would become "Microsoft Complete Baseball" During this time John learned about database development, computer technology, gaming & consumer marketing.

After releasing the follow-up to Complete Baseball, the next year, John focused on exhibit and event marketing taking a position as Director of Exhibit Services for ImagiCorps growing the interactive gaming & retail kiosk business for Nintendo of America, and then as the Vice President of Event Services for Kindred Communications where he built an agency account team to support marketing and media events for the Microsoft Windows brand. When Microsoft was preparing to launch the Xbox, GMR Marketing hired John to manage and build the Xbox business for GMR in Seattle and compete against established video game brands Sony and Nintendo. After the Xbox launched, John was ultimately recruited by Microsoft and hired to build an internal event & experiential marketing team for the Entertainment and Devices Division. John spent nearly a decade at Microsoft launching dozens of products and services and helped oversee consumer promotions, product placement, and influencer marketing in his role as Director of Global Event & Partnership Marketing for Xbox.

In 2018 John joined the leadership team at SH Worldwide (SHW) as COO and Senior Vice President of Creative & Production to help grow the 40-year-old agency, expand the client base, and build new lines of business. During the two years with John in that role, SHW saw its highest revenue increases in agency history, and it was awarded as one of the "Best Places to Work" in Seattle. SHW remains a partner today.