Joel Johnson
Job Title: Director of Alumni Relations
Specialties: alumni development, education
Their Podcast: Save Your Alma Mater: Joel Johnson on Alumni Leadership
Joel Johnson was born in Connecticut to a father who retired at 49 years old. At the age of 7, Johnson and his family moved to the small town of Punta Gorda, FL, and then later to Port Charlotte, FL. Deep in the snowbird community, Johnson began his journey to his eventual career in alumni relations.
Johnson attended a Christian high school where he met his wife, Sandy. Though Sandy began her college story at Southeastern, Johnson began his at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to play soccer and baseball. There Joel learned the importance of not “checking out,” as he so astutely phrases it, when he injured himself during the game and lost interest in participating in the college climate. After just one semester, Johnson returned to Florida to begin studying at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida.
After losing his brother and family to a tragic car accident, Johnson entered into his college life with a considerable weight; a weight that was soon shouldered alongside a network of coaches and leadership figures at Southeastern.
Today, Joel has four children: Warren, Dillon, Amberlee, and Mckenzie, and confidently pursues relationships with the Southeastern alumni he serves.