John Marshall

John  Marshall
  • BS Civil Engineering 1968
John Marshall graduated from Michigan Tech in 1968 with a degree in civil engineering. He joined Kennecott Copper after graduation, working as a pit operations engineer in Salt Lake City until 1973, when he took a similar position with Cleveland-Cliffs.

Over 30 years, Marshall held several management assignments with Cleveland-Cliffs and the company's operations in and around Ishpeming, Michigan. He held management positions at the Republic Mine, spent eight years as senior staff engineer in the corporate office in Cleveland, transferred back to Michigan in 1983 as manager of human resources in Michigan, managed Cliffs Electric Service, was general superintendent at the Empire Mine, and was general superintendent at the Tilden Mine. In 1993, he was named president and general manager of the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs and served in that position until his retirement on November 30, 2003. He went back to work in March of 2004 as President of Superior Extrusion, an aluminum extrusion plant located on the former KI Sawyer Air Base in Gwinn, MI. When his wife Donna elected to retire from NMU, where she taught in the College of Nursing, in August 2005, he joined her in retirement.

Marshall has a long history of community service. He served eight years on the Michigan Tech Alumni Association Board of Directors, including two as president. He was a long time executive board member of the Hiawathaland Boy Scout Council. He has served as a leadership committee member of the Marquette County United Way for the past 20 years. He has been a member for 11 years and for the past two years Chairman of the Board of the Lake Superior Community Partnership, which is Marquette County's Economic and Community Development Organization. He serves as Treasurer of the Marquette County Community Foundation. He serves on the Board of Directors of Range Financial Corporation and Range Bank NA. He has also been Co-Chair of Operation Action UP for the past 15 years.

He was elected to Michigan Tech's Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumni Academy in 1994. He also served on the presidential search committee in 1990-91. In 2001, he received the Alumni Association's Distinguished Alumni Award.

He and his wife, Donna, have a grown daughter and two grandchildren and live on Lake Superior in Marquette.


Excerpted from the 2001 Alumni Reunion Awards Program

Updated February 2009