John Brown

John Brown is director of communications for The University of Arizona Foundation, which annually raises more than $100 million in private support for the university. His diverse background includes more than 10 years experience in corporate marketing and communications as well as psychology research.

John's previous positions include Director of Public Relations for KB Home's Tucson Division and Senior Corporate Communications Specialist for UniSource Energy Corporation, parent company to Tucson Electric Power (TEP) and UniSource Energy Services, which combined serve 800,000 utility customers across Arizona.

John's responsibilities at the publicly traded electric and gas utility included strategic communications and advertising as well as media, customer, employee, investor and governmental relations. He also managed TEP's electrical safety campaign, which consumers rated the most recalled advertising for any utility nationwide in the 2005 J.D. Power & Associates Customer Satisfaction Survey. TEP's safety TV spot also earned three ADDY Awards from the Tucson Advertising Federation in 2005.

John also served on the marketing team for the TEP Guarantee Home Program, a partnership with local builders to offer energy efficient homes. The program, which built just 37 homes in 1997, accounts for nearly half of all new homes built annually in the Tucson area.

In a previous life, John was a ghostwriter - literally - serving as a research assistant for Dr. Gary E. Schwartz, a University of Arizona professor of psychology, medicine and neurology who scientifically tested the abilities of psychic mediums such as John Edwards of Crossing Over and Allison Dubois, whose life story is the basis of NBC's fictional drama Medium.

John drafted the original manuscript that evolved into Schwartz's first book on the topic, "The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death." The work also has been featured in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, as well as mainstream media, including Dateline, 20/20 and HBO.

After talking to the dead, John says there's nothing spooky about serving the communication needs of living, breathing clients.

Born in Chicago, John graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in Journalism and a thematic minor in advertising, psychology and communication. He is past president of the Tucson Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). In 2003, he co-produced IABC's first live, streaming video Web cast of a professional development seminar. (BYT - Before YouTube)

John started his career as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Denver and later worked as an editorial assistant at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

He lives in east Tucson with his wife and two daughters. He likes all things outdoors, including mountain biking, rock climbing and camping, as well as golf, soccer and tennis.

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