Lt Cmdr John McFarlane
Lt Cdr McFarlane was commissioned as a Naval Officer in the Jamaica Defence Force in 1969, after two years of training. Some of the many appointments held during his 25 years of service included service as Aide de Camp to His Excellency the Governor General of Jamaica; Commanding Officer of the JDF Coast Guard; Commanding Officer of the JDF Air Wing and Staff Officer Administration at The Headquarters of the Jamaica Defence Force. He qualified as a Ship’s Captain, Military and Commercial Pilot and Naval Diver. He served as Director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness, Director of Harbours and Ports Services with the Port Authority of Jamaica, Managing Director of the Transport Authority, and for a short period, General Manager of ATL Automotive Ltd. As a Consultant to the Jamaica Urban Transit Company, he developed and established the school bus system in September 1998, and started the JUTC’s eastern franchise operations in January 1999. He returned as Managing Director of the Transport Authority in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed Managing Director of the Ports Security Corps, for which organization he played a part in its early development in the early 1990s while at the Port Authority of Jamaica. He served as Executive Director of the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica, coordinated the management and deployment of specialist election-day workers for the Electoral Office of Jamaica, and was appointed Director of Aviation Security with the Airports Authority of Jamaica in December 2006.
He is currently Jamaica’s Delegate to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and has represented Jamaica in several other capacities.
He was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in 1985. He is President of the Royal Life Saving Society, Jamaica, and Past President of the Jamaica/Western New York Partners of the Americas and the Queen’s Schools Parents’ Teachers’ Association, and Past Vice President of the Wolmer’s Boys School PTA. He also served as Choir Master for the Galilee Gospel Hall, and is the organist and Choir Master for the Annual Convention of the Assemblies of Christian Brethren. He is a pianist, violinist and guitarist. He married Deanna Anderson 36 years ago, and they are the parents of four children and nine grandchildren.
Lt Cdr John McFarlane started solo singing in public when he was four years old. The son of one of Jamaica’s leading piano teachers, Mrs. Kathleen McFarlane, he went on to win many medals and awards in the annual Jamaica Music Festival and the Jamaica Speech and Drama Festivals in the late nineteen fifties and throughout the sixties. His formal voice training, which began at Wolmer’s Boys School, and continued at the Jamaica School of Music, was further honed whilst at the Britannia Royal Naval College, in England. He has performed in many cities in the United Kingdom and the Americas, and for many distinguished audiences, including members of the Royal Family.