John is the founder of El Cerrito Coins. When he was under the age of 12, he started working long hours during summer on his family's almond ranch and during the school year he helped his Dad with maintenance and janitorial at his father's job. He learned young how to value money and earn it the hard way. At 17 John was drafted into the Vietnam war where he served for 2 years. He spent most of his time deployed in Vietnam where he traveled mostly on foot and on helicopters.  Shortly before he was drafted he had met Darlene and the two of them wrote letters until his return home. It was during this time a budding romance began. After he came back home from Vietnam he wasted no time to propose to Darlene and the two got married in the summer of 1972. He took business classes at Contra Costa College and started his own janitorial business as sole owner and operator. In the beginning he had few clients but over time, due to his persistence to succeed and attention to details, he quickly gained a solid reputation as a reliable, quick and effective cleaner and manager. He gained residential and commercial clients throughout the Bay Area mostly by word of mouth. His brothers Mark and Phil joined him in partnership and at the height of their business they had over 25 employees and multiple large commercial towers they would service. John always had a passion for coins and had learned a lot about the business from his friend Ron that owned Ron's coins (where El Cerrito Coin Exchange is today). Ron decided to move to a larger location and sold his business to John. He loved it so much, meeting new people, seeing all the cool things people would bring in and also helping people out. He continued to work until his passing in 2015. He is survived by his wife of 43 years (at the time) and 4 children and now 7 grandchildren.

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From Monique:

Just one the coolest guys I have ever met. His sense of humor was witty and silly at the same time. When I was with him we laughed a lot and the way he could retell a story, he had such great comedic timing and facial expressions. I miss his commentaries; it is probably what I miss the most, wondering what his take would be on something or how he would react to a story I told him.  Most people have at least one person in their life that they just have to tell a story to before they feel it's fully real and my Dad was one of those people for me. My heart still aches with his absence and I suppose you know you have lived a good life and were loved if that is true.