consultant management educator writer
John Wallis Creighton was born on April 7, 1916, in Yeung Kong, China, to John Wallis Creighton and Lois Jameson Creighton. His early professional life connected forestry, lumber manufacturing, and international wartime resource work. He later maintained a long association with California, including service on the Forestry Commission in Carmel from 1986 to 1995.
Creighton attended Wooster College from 1933 to 1936. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the University of Michigan in 1938, an AB from Hastings College in 1939, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Wood Technology and Industrial Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1954. His education combined forestry and wood technology with the management and industrial perspective that shaped his later academic and consulting work.
Creighton began his professional career as a sawmill operator in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, from 1939 to 1941. From 1941 to 1943 he served on the staff of the United States Board of Economic Warfare in Ecuador, where his work was connected with wartime balsa procurement. He then worked for the R.S. Bacon Veneer Company in Chicago and for Bacon Lumber Company in Sunman, Indiana, serving as assistant general manager, general manager, and vice president between 1943 and 1946. From 1946 to 1954 he was a member of the faculty at Michigan State University and taught wood technology. He joined Baker Furniture Incorporated in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1954 as assistant to the general manager and vice president, remaining there until 1958. From 1958 to 1965 he was president of Creighton Building Company in Santa Barbara, California. He returned to academic work as a professor of management at Colorado State University from 1965 to 1967, then joined the United States Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, as a professor of management. At the Naval Postgraduate School he served as department chairman from 1967 to 1971 and directed the Federal Executive Management Program from 1974 to 1982. He became professor emeritus in 1986 and continued government consulting. His work included research in lumber manufacturing, organization studies, and research conducted for the United States Navy and the United States Forest Service. He was also a writer, publishing both technical work on sawmill operations and the World War II novel Waring's War.
Received numerous research grants for work in lumber manufacturing and for research and organization studies conducted for the United States Navy and the United States Forest Service.
Combined professional experience in forestry, lumber manufacturing, wood technology, business management, university teaching, government consulting, and technical and literary writing.
(Technical Note no. 292, published by the Lake States Fore...)
1948He was Presbyterian.
Creighton served as a member of the Forestry Commission in Carmel, California, from 1986 to 1995. He was also associated with the Technology Transfer Society, the Writers' International Network, and the California Writers' Club.
Creighton was the son of John Wallis Creighton and Lois Jameson Creighton. He married Harriet Harrington on June 30, 1940. They had two daughters, Carol and Joan.
