John P. Kacsan Jr.
Director of Natural Sales

John lives in Jacksonville, Florida where he resides with his lovely wife, Linda. Linda & John have two sons, Brian and Travis. Brian lives in Mississippi with his wife, Tanya, and their son, Brian, Jr. Travis lives in Orlando.
John was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Serra Catholic High School, he attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. John graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1974. Also, John was in the ROTC program where he received a commission as a Transportation Officer in the United States Army Reserves.

John interest in the food industry began in Metro New York where he started as an end user representative calling on hospitals, schools, and restaurants for Keebler Food Service.
He was promoted in three months to the position of Area Supervisor calling on the major food service distributor for Northern New Jersey, Southern New York State, half of Connecticut and New York City.
After only two months, John received the award for the Number One Sales Representative for Keebler Food Service.
John moved back to Pittsburgh in 1976 and accepted a position with Foodland International as Director of Sales for the company. He developed many new private label items for the chain. He sold these items to the 17 wholesale members national.
John and Linda were married in 1978. They were tired of the icy winters and planned to move south someday.
In 1980, after the birth of their son, Brian, John moved his family to South Florida, were he accepted a job with General Nutrition Centers.
He was an area manager for the company and was responsible for sales and operations of 10 natural food stores. During this time, he became very knowledgeable in nutrition and re-evaluated his family’s diet.
After the birth of his son, Travis, in 1983, John was offered a position with Tree of Life to manage the natural food sales for the state of Florida. Here, John learned more about nutrition and natural foods. During this time he also got involve with The National Nutritional Foods Association. He was elected as a manufacturer representative on the NNFA board.
In 1985, John was offered a position with the Solgar Vitamin Company. His territory covered the state of Florida. He was now selling vitamins to all the natural food stores in the Southeast. He was very active in the NNFA trade association and in 1987 was elected President-elect. In 1989, John would have taken over as president, but in late November 1989, he was deployed to Saudi Arabia to fight in Desert Storm. John’s rank at this time was a Major in the United States Army Reserves and served as the Liaison Officer for the Egyptian Army. During the nine months in the Mid East,” Major John” (as his Egyptian troops called him) worked on hauling heavy lifts. John learned to drive military vehicles, such as army tanks and double tandems.
After returning from the war, John resumed his position as sales representative with the Solgar Vitamin Company until 1995. In April 1995, he accepted a position at Sunbelt Sales & Marketing in St. Augustine where he managed the mass market sales division for the company. He developed many of the planograms used in the southeast today. The company was sold to Advantage Sales and Marketing in 2002.
In 2003, after 28 years with the United States Army Reserves, Colonel John retired as the Commander of the 2nd of the 349th Logistic Support Battalion.
John headed the Specialty Department for several years at Advantage Sales and Marketing. In late 2006, John took over the sales for both Natural and Specialty. He was responsible for directing sales to Tree of Life on a national basis.
John has known Gary and Eddie for over a decade. At a chance meeting they started a conversation that lead to another conversation that ended with John coming on board as Director of Natural Sales.
John is glad to be part of our team and we know that he will be another great link in our chain.
In his free time, John loves to cook. His other hobbies include fishing, reading books on United States and World history, and inspirational books.