Personal Information

About John Drea:

What's Dr. Drea been reading in the past twelve months?

A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, by Simon Winchester

Good to Great by Jim Collins

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

Lead to Succeed: 10 Traits of Great Leadership in Business and Life by Rick Pitino

Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

Mr. Paradise and The Hot Kid, both by Elmore Leonard

The Five People you Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis

Al McGuire: The Colorful Warrior, by Roger Jaynes

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas L. Friedman

Don't Know Much About the Bible, by Kenneth Davis

Cape May Courthouse: A Death in the Night, by Lawrence Schiller

SPIN Selling, by Neil Rackham

The Dreams of My Father by Barrack Obama

I was born on October 18, 1958 in Kincaid, Illinois (it's 25 miles southeast of Springfield), son of the Patrick and Marjorie Drea. Dad passed away on December 9, 2005 at the age of 86, and Mom has moved to Taylorville. I have an older brother, Michael, of Taylorville, IL (married to the former Kathy Nolan - they have two boys, Nolan and Ryan). Mike works in the Illinois Office of the Comptroller, and he is the past Chairman of the Christian County Board.

I graduated from South Fork Community High School in Kincaid in 1976. I earned my BA degree at Illinois College (1980), an MBA at the University of Notre Dame (1982), and my doctorate in Marketing at Southern Illinois University (1994). I was honored to be asked back to my high school in 1999, where I was the commencement speaker.

My work history includes approximately ten years at John Wood Community College in Quincy, where I learned a great deal about the teaching and learning process by working with some very gifted educators. At JWCC, I started out in the President's Office doing long range planning, grant writing, and marketing activities, and gradually assumed more responsibilities until I became Assistant Dean of Instruction (1986-94), where I was responsible for the majority of full-time faculty and programs. I did a little of everything when it comes to marketing - redesigning programs to better serve customer needs, writing marketing plans, writing copy for advertisements, designing brochures, and doing voice-overs for advertisements. I was involved in creating the first "money-back guarantee" in college credit transferability, which was pretty cool.

I left JWCC in 1994, taught for one year at Montana State University-Billings (I love Montana!), and then joined the faculty at WIU. I was promoted to Associate Professor of Marketing at WIU in 1998, and to Professor in 2004. I'm currently serving as the Department Chair. I've also been active in consumer behavior research, particularly related to Amtrak in Illinois. (I have the distinction of having been in every Amtrak train station in Illinois!) If you are interested in learning about the research I've directed concerning Amtrak in Illinois, click here: Amtrak Research Report.

If you're interested in more of my professional life, check my vita (resume) - it's also on this web site. Since arriving at WIU in 1994, I've been the recipient of several awards:

Winner, Award for Innovative Excellence in Marketing Education, American Marketing Association (2003)

Winner, Instructional Innovation Competition, Society for Marketing Advances (2000)

Outstanding Researcher, WIU College of Business and Technology (2000)

Outstanding Teacher, WIU College of Business and Technology (1999-2000)

Winner, Great Teacher in Marketing Competition, Society for Marketing Advances (1998)

Outstanding Researcher, WIU College of Business and Technology (1998)

Teacher of the Month, WIU Student Government Association (October 1996 and March 1998)

I've been active in developing technology-based supplements for marketing textbooks, including three games "Who Wants to Be a Marketer?" for use with Marketing by Lamb, Hair and McDaniel; "Who Wants to be an 'A' Student?" to accompany Marketing by Pride and Ferrell (2002, 2005, and 2007 - forthcoming), and "Master the Class" (2004) to accompany Business by Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor. I've also developed PowerPoint slides to accompany Business to Business Marketing: An Introduction by Vitale and Giglierano (2002.) Lately, I've become involved in running an Internet-based company that delivers on-line training to individuals in the third party logistics area. I wrote my first book, Marketing Transportation Brokerage Services (with Dr. Joe Hanna) for the third party logistics audience.

On October 19 , 1985, I married Brenda (Mohrman) Drea at St. Peter Catholic Church in Quincy. We have two terrific children, Thomas and Kelsey. Kelsey is a sophomore at Macomb High School, and Thomas is a freshman at Marquette University, majoring in philosophy.

Because of college and work, I've lived in several places, predominantly in the Midwest. My previous addresses include Kincaid, IL (17 years), Jacksonville, IL (4 years), Mishawaka, IN (2 years), Macomb, IL (1 year), Murphysboro, IL (1 year), Quincy, IL (10 years), Billings, MT (1 year), and back to Macomb (1995-present).

Hobbies include chess (actually pretty good), carpentry (ok), golf (mid 90s), running (four miles in 38 minutes), reading, and fantasy football (co-owner for 17 years of a legendary franchise, two-time champion in the Art Schlichter Fantasy Football League in Quincy, IL with my good friend, Mike Terry).

I've been active in Macomb youth sports, coaching countless local kids in basketball, baseball, and softball. Specifically, I've coached

	Two seasons of Little League (with Tim Howe, 1997; and Mark Seipel and Garry Ackers, 1998)
	Three seasons of YMCA Basketball (with Tim Howe, 1997; Dave Bartlett, 1999; and Doug Thorman, 2000)
	Two seasons of MCGSL Pee-Wee Softball (with Brenda Drea, 1999, 2000)
	Two seasons of boy's basketball at St. Paul School (with Al Harris and Dale Thompson, 1998-99 and 1999-2000)
	Two seasons of girl's basketball at St. Paul School (with Dennis Papini and Bob Doyle, 2001, 2002)
	One season of Pony League Baseball (with Garry Ackers and Hank Heberling, 2002)

The success that these teams have had can be attributed to these individuals and to the players that are willing to listen and work hard.

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