In the Spotlight - John R. Fulling, Jr., CGCS
Tell us about your background. Where you were born, raised, etc.?
I was born and raised in Rockford, Ill. I went to college at Northern Illinois University and studied music the first time around. It’s hard to make a living on $75 a weekend! So, I went back to turf school at Kishwaukee College near Dekalb, Ill. It’s a good little horticultural school with an emphasis in golf and turf.
I’ve been married to my wife Susan for 15 years and we have two daughters, Ali who is 14 and Emily, who is 11.
My extracurricular activities revolve around my kids and music. Work still takes up most of my time, but when not at work or with the kids, I’m either in rehearsal or playing shows on weekends. The band is called “The Bronk Bros.” It is a country band that plays regionally around Michigan. We average 100 shows a year!
How did you get started in the golf industry?
During high school and college I worked at the Forest Hills Country Club in Rockford. While attending Kishwaukee College, I interned at Medinah Country Club under Danny Quast and was asked to come back. I ended up as one of the course superintendents (course #1) at Medinah. I left in 1992 to come to Michigan as superintendent at Berrien Hills Country Club in St. Joseph, MI. I was there for two years and then I took my current position at the Kalamazoo Country Club.
Why become a leader in your chapter?
I started in the chapter as a board member because some of my Michigan mentors asked me to do it. I think we forget sometimes that people never get involved, because we don’t go and ask them to get involved. It’s all about asking. Everybody wants to feel like they’re part of a group that’s doing good work, but many times they don’t know how to go about getting involved, or their personalities are a little reserved. We need to constantly encourage people to be involved.
I think leadership can be learned. Certainly, to lead we must have a personal drive, but as with any skill only time and practice makes us proficient. I wanted to do what I could to help the profession and the golf business succeed. I wanted to learn as much as I could from others. Chapter service put me in a position to work on relationship building, organization, written communication, public speaking, etc. It clearly made me better at not only my job, but many other aspects in my life.
The unifying of the Michigan chapters was a huge undertaking that spanned several years. What advice would you offer other chapter leaders trying to get a new initiative underway?
Patience, persistence, selflessness, community and the right cause. If your goal is worthy and your cause is right, it will eventually become a reality. It can never be a personal mission, you must build consensus. Be persistent for the sake of the cause, but be patient with others and their willingness to listen and understand. Start small with a few people and let the issue be their issue, too. They will help sell it to a few more, and so on and so on. Over time the initiative will gain a life of its own. Finally, get out! Always remember that it’s not about you, but whatever initiative or idea you are trying to implement. Let others take it and run with it.
Anything else you would like to add?
The six years that I invested in this project were the most personally and professionally productive of my adult life. From the very start there were others who were working very hard to first decide whether this was the right thing to do, and then to make it happen. We learned from one another and we supported each other. Each of us had plenty of occasions when we thought we had had enough, and then the rest of the team wouldn’t let us. This made me a better person.
