John Mapes is a full-time percussion designer and educator based out of Southern California. He received his Bachelor of Arts in percussion from California State University Long Beach in the spring of 2000. Since 2005, he has earned an unprecedented 38 WGI medals, which includes 9 World Class championships.
He has been the Percussion Director at Chino Hills HS since the fall of 2005 and was Director of Percussion at Pacifica HS from 2000-2011. He joined the design team at Pulse Percussion in 2008 and is currently the battery arranger, visual designer and program coordinator. In 2013, John joined the design team for the Blue Stars Drum & Bugle Corps as the battery arranger and worked there until the summer of 2016.
John is a Vic Firth Signature artist, a Yamaha artist, a Remo artist, a Zildjian artist and a WGI Percussion Steering Committee/Advisory Board member. He is also a co-founder of Box-Six.com, a website compiling original indoor percussion and marching band shows with fellow composer Ian Grom.