John Lanza grew up in Revere, Massachusetts. After graduating from Bates College in 1967, he was a banker in New York City for almost forty years, retiring from JPMorgan Chase in 2006. He has an MBA from Baruch College and taught undergraduate and graduate courses on payments systems for over twenty-five years.

John has five grown children and eight grandchildren, and lives with his wife, Diana, in Caldwell, New Jersey. He is an avid reader and has always been involved with team sports as a player, coach, booster, writer, and photographer. He was once a Red Sox prospect and later a Yankee bird dog scout, at which time his father accused him of treason.

He has spent his retirement years reading, researching, and writing about veteran airmen and the history around them. He spent the first four years of his retirement writing Shot Down Over Italy after falling upon a story about a crew that included his uncle. In giving a talk on the book at a veterans’ home, he met another veteran airman, John Cooney, who sparked his interest in spending another ten years researching and writing From One War To Another.