My father died three days before my tenth birthday. Losing him, my natural role model and mentor, at the advent of my adolescence, was devastating; and it manifested as low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, and a loss of confidence that pervaded my adolescence.

I found solace in quiet natural places—in the forests of my youth, along cold mountain streams, atop rocky peaks overlooking vast forested landscapes, and unexpected moments of perception in lush carpeted woodlands. That is where I found myself, if only for brief moments as nature called to me.

Middle school was problematic. I was always in trouble for one thing or another and my grades suffered. By the end of ninth grade, I failed all of my subjects.

That summer of 1969, Mom remarried and a sense of stability returned to our family. In the fall of that year, I repeated ninth grade at a new school—Avon Old Farms, a small boys’ boarding school on a large wooded forest in Connecticut’s Farmington River Valley.

My freshman year at Avon is where I was first introduced to industrial threats to ecosystems in reading Rachel Carson’s seminal work, Silent Spring. There, I also learned about acid rain and other environmental issues. I also met Pete Seeger (an alumnus of the school) and learned of his activism on cleaning up the Hudson River from industrial pollutants. It was the beginning of my sustainability education.

Avon gave me the support system to begin rebuilding my self-esteem. The school’s motto, “Aspirando et Perseverando” ~ Aspire and Persevere ~ was a constant reminder that if I was going to be successful, it had to come from within; it was up to me. Through hard work, excellent teachers, and a small cohort of friends, my grades and self-confidence improved. I certainly was not the perfect student. I tested my boundaries and broke nearly every rule of the school, but after four years, I graduated in the top fifth of my class. I aspired and persevered.

But, on graduation day, the headmaster of the school, with whom I had had some run-ins over those four years, approached me and commented, “Martinson, you will never amount to anything” and walked away. Just when I was feeling pretty good about things, it was was like a punch in the stomach.

After Avon, things went generally south for me. After four and a half semesters at Syracuse University, I dropped out and went to work in New York City; then quit and moved to Phoenix in July of 1976. There, I did two semesters at Scottsdale Community College, transferred to ASU in ’77, and worked brief stints as a security guard and a bank teller. In 1978, I dropped out again, got married, and started a business selling coffee and tea to restaurants and offices. A year later, I met Dan Schweiker, who was opening a coffee roasting retail store on Camelback Road and 32nd street and we became fast friends. Then, early in 1982, Dan and I both ran out of cash and closed our respective businesses at which time I divorced my wife.

Not to be defeated, Dan and I assessed and discovered that we had complementary strengths and weaknesses. I was good at sales and marketing and Dan was good at business operations. In August 1982, we decided to go into business together, employing our mutual passion for quality to disrupt the foodservice iced tea industry.
China Mist was a quality operation from the get go. We sourced better teas than any of our competitors, selected the best equipment, and early on, devised the tenets of what was to become known as Tea-Loving Care®. We wanted our iced tea to taste better than anyone else’s and we wanted it to taste as good as possible in every restaurant where it was served no matter where it was served. This was our guiding principle.

Once China Mist was established, I dove back into global environmental issues. I became a vegetarian for social justice and humanitarian reasons; became active in population issues and worked in support of the United Nations Population Fund. Then in the late 1980s, I turned my environmental attentions toward global warming and related risks to ecosystems, including externalities from the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture. Subsequently, China Mist sourced and marketed the first USDA Organic and Fair Trade iced teas for foodservice. I was living my values.

I married Suzanne in 1992 and our son, Neo (named for new ways of thinking) was born in 2001 and our daughter, Eco (named for our love of ecology and nature) was born in 2003. In 2005, I took a sabbatical from my day-to-day marketing and product development at China Mist to spend more time with our kids during their formative years.

In 2009, I returned to ASU to finish my undergraduate degree and it was there that I discovered sustainability as a scholarly pursuit; finally finding my academic calling. I completed five core subjects in Sustainability and started a sustainability blog. I graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of General Studies in December 2012. Energized by my academic success and wanting to do more in this field. I set up a family foundation to fund graduate projects in ASU’s School of Sustainability.

When I heard about the Executive Masters for Sustainability Leadership (EMSL) Program, I jumped at the opportunity. Coincidentally, China Mist was ready for me to return and re-engage actively in charge of marketing, brand, and sustainability. It was an opportunity I could not pass up. EMSL will provide me with the knowledge, skills, and credentials to help China Mist become a sustainable leader in our industry and to help other businesses and organizations become more sustainable as well. For China Mist and all of its stakeholders, my mentorship will be expressed as “John’s 3E’s” Educate | Empower | Energize as I lead the company into its sustainable future. Above all, EMSL gives me the opportunity to make the last third of life productive and meaningful in building a legacy of sustainability leadership for my family. Dad would have been proud.