Born and raised in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Everything I've built leads back to the place that made me.
I came into this world thirty-one years ago in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. My family has been in the Commonwealth for generations, and in Huntingdon since my parents fell in love with the area and moved here in 1993. Raystown Lake — Pennsylvania's largest — has been the geographic and emotional center of my life for as long as I can remember. It's where I learned to fish, to drive a boat, to read weather off a ridge, to be patient with land and with people.
You cannot grow up in a place like Huntingdon County and not understand certain things in your bones. You understand that small communities are not abstractions — they are people who know each other's children, businesses that have been in families for four generations, downtowns whose windows have lights or do not. It's also where I watched a regional economy contract through my entire childhood. That gap — between what the region is and what it could be — has been visible to me for thirty years.
My journey since has taken me a lot of places. With each stop, it became clear why I had to go there, who I'd never have met otherwise, and the lessons I had to learn in each season. But the through-line never changed: I'm John O'Korn from Huntingdon, and I came home to invest my life in the place that raised me.
John August O'Korn is born on November 22, 1994, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
Grows up competing in football, baseball, basketball, and wrestling — and spends summers on the lake fishing, tubing, jet-skiing, cliff jumping, camping, and hiking. The county becomes the center of his life.
Moves to Fort Lauderdale to attend St. Thomas Aquinas High School.
Leads St. Thomas Aquinas to a Florida Class 7A state title, named 7A Player of the Year and State Finals MVP, and accepts a scholarship to the University of Houston.
Named American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year and earns Freshman All-American honors as the Cougars' starting quarterback.
Transfers to the University of Michigan to play for Jim Harbaugh in the largest stadium in North America — The Big House.
Plays in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, joins the New York Giants, then moves to NYC to begin his business career. Earns his degree in American Culture from Michigan, founds West Village Ventures, and begins the work that would bring him home.
Founds a branding & marketing agency to help businesses across Central Pennsylvania elevate their digital presence.
Founds Brevity, a travel app later recognized by Forbes, The Washington Post, the Webby Awards, and the W3 Awards.
Founds his newest venture — a guided-fasting platform built to help Christians answer the call to fast.
I earned my degree in American Culture in 2018 from the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan. The program is interdisciplinary — history, literature, sociology, race, region, and place. I like to describe it as American history, political science, and sociology bundled into one. It taught me to see through biased narratives, digest what's really going on, and understand what it takes for a community to flourish.
At Michigan I also completed an independent study with world-renowned photographer David Turnley — a Pulitzer Prize winner, two-time World Press Photo of the Year, and recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal for courage in photojournalism. That apprenticeship in capturing moments — in finding and telling the true story of a place and its people — still guides how I build brand stories and how I see the places I photograph.
At Michigan I helped establish new Bible studies and baptisms within the program and worked to bring on a team chaplain and Director of Character Development. Over the years that followed, more than 400 players and coaches professed their faith and 93 were baptized — the thing from my Michigan years I'm most grateful to have been part of.
In 2017 I interned in New York for RISE — the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality. I helped lead an NFL roundtable at Morehouse College, organized and spoke on a panel at Michigan's MLK Symposium alongside Jocelyn Benson and Desmond Howard, and worked with university officials to address rising tensions on campus.
Through Team IMPACT, I formed a close relationship with Larry Prout Jr. and his family — a bond written about by The Michigan Daily and featured by Bleacher Report. A decade later, we remain close, and I now serve as Vice President on the board of The Larry Prout Jr. Courage Fund. It's the clearest expression of the values I try to bring to everything: show up for a place and its people, and stay.
"We can all win." John O'Korn