John Donaldson has over 20 years of experience in association management, partnership building, education/professional development/grants programming, facilitating learning, teaching, and organizational development.
Before joining NAfME, he was senior director of education and instructional design for four years at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). At APIC, he was staff liaison to the Education and Professional Development Committees, redesigned education programs with SMEs, developed diverse eLearning courses/services, managed a national grant project, contributed to numerous articles, and was a co-author of APIC’s updated Competency Model (American Journal of Infection Control, 2019).
Previously, John was director of continuing education at the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering and national director for training at National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP), a national nonprofit supporting hundreds of local/state Department of Education GEAR UP grants providing broad-based college and workforce readiness programs for students in the lowest income school districts in the U.S. He also served as director of education programs at TESOL International Association for nine years, guiding steady growth of programming for K-12 and university-level educators worldwide. Previous positions include manager of the Executive Management and International sections at the American Society of Association Executives, manager of a national grant focused on IT workforce education, regional director for Asia at Sister Cities International, and English language teacher (for adult, high school, and college-age students) in Tokyo, Japan.
John has a master’s in teaching from the School for International Training, a master’s in organizational learning from George Mason University, and a bachelor’s from the University of Washington in history, with minors in geography and Japanese.
John participated in choirs in middle school and college and has played/practiced the guitar over the years. He is currently taking trumpet and piano lessons. John was a supporter of the arts as PTA President of Mt. Vernon Community School in Alexandria, VA, where his son played the clarinet. He was also a chaperone for competitions of his son’s middle school jazz band and a member of the Alexandria City High School Band Boosters, where his son was a versatile musician, playing the bass clarinet in the symphonic band and serving as pit captain of the percussion section of the marching band.
