Pacific Symphony is pleased to announce our Volunteer of the Year, John Evans! John has been a valuable volunteer and stellar contributor of his time, talents, and skills since 1987. Read about John’s many accomplishments and his support of Pacific Symphony.
John Evans, who is a former chair of the Symphony’s Board of Directors, has been devoted to Pacific Symphony’s work and mission for over three and a half decades. He has played an outstanding role through his servitude and leadership. He attends both our Pops and Classical series as a Box Circle Club member.
John Evans began his business career with Wells Fargo Bank in 1969 after graduating from the University of Utah where he studied international relations, economics, and languages. After various commercial lending assignments, he was appointed Regional Manager of South/Central/Eastern Europe, then transferred to Tehran to open the Middle East as Managing Representative. Later, he managed European Continental Corporate Banking headquartered in Brussels. After returning from his foreign residencies, he held various management positions in corporate banking.
In 1986, John Evans moved to Orange County where he managed business banking and in 1991, he was appointed Senior Vice President and Regional Managing Director of The Private Bank for Wells Fargo located in Newport Beach. In this position, he oversaw trust, investment management, brokerage, and private banking activities in Orange County.
John serves on nationally recognized arts, education, and human needs boards. After living and traveling in underdeveloped locations around the world as well as recognizing needs at home, he feels these activities are vital to both the giver and the receiver. After traveling in Nepal years ago and seeing human need there, he said this at National Philanthropy Day in Orange County in 2008:
“By living inwardly and selfishly, we become small and unfulfilled. Conversely, giving of ourselves with our time and resources to the less fortunate is the only way to become bigger than we are. It is the only way to self-fulfillment. There is no shortcut. There is no other way to real personal happiness. Further, the less fortunate, too, are lifted to eventually emulate the example of giving to multiply our efforts.”
The comments Carl St.Clair gave in a Pacific Symphony meeting in 2006 reflect part of John’s motivation for involvement:
“What we do [as musicians supersedes] entertainment. You cannot change the history of music. It’s not written for entertainment. Entertainment is not the inspiration. That’s not why it has come into our being. Composers are a unique group of people that tend to have the ability to reach into the ethos and pull-down notes and put them on paper so that we can carnally understand them and partake of their genius, and partake of their sipping of the divine. Beethoven’s 9th wasn’t written for entertainment. Schubert’s 9th was not written for entertainment….We do receive enrichment. We are rewarded. We are moved. We are touched. We are challenged. We are intellectually stimulated.” (Carl St.Clair 10/24/06 Pacific Symphony Executive Committee Meeting comments.)
John resides in Orange County with his wife Ruth Ann and enjoys being with his children and grandchildren, taking Harley motorcycle rides, and traveling in his free time. John’s travels have taken him to every continent: he’s climbed the high ranges of the Himalayas, Kilimanjaro, the Dolomites, and the Alps, as well as going diving in remote locations. And he still makes his annual visit to Snowbird to point them down…and worry later!
For all he means to Pacific Symphony, we celebrate John and congratulate him on being our Volunteer of the Year!