John built his career airline operations starting at Eastern Airlines where he helped pioneer the airline industry’s first implementation of barcode tags for baggage and the origin of the LPN – Licence Plate Number.

On July 1, 1981, a bomb in a suitcase exploded as it was being loaded onto an Eastern flight from Guatemala to Miami killing a baggage worker. Vermilye developed a manual BRS – Baggage Reconciliation System including the “bingo sheet” used to match bags loaded against passengers boarded. This also led to the deployment of x-raying checked baggage on Eastern’s international flights.

In the wake of the bombing of Air India flight 182 in 1985 a IATA emergency working group was created to change interline baggage standards in line with the changes to ICAO Annex 17. Vermilye was appointed chair and used his experience to bring the LPN and barcode supported BRS to the industry.

John was then recruited to IATA to lead baggage modernisation and in the first meeting as Secretary proposed that the small barcode adopted for BRS be extended as the standard for baggage sortation replacing the handful of other systems used by different airlines. This was adopted and remains in place today.

Vermilye rose within the ranks of IATA to Senior Vice President. John served as an executive advisor to the US Government after 9/11 to create the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, and among his roles was designing the procedures for supporting open baggage inspection.

With support from the travel goods industry and the TSA John created the Travel Sentry Approved – TSA Lock standard. Travel Sentry does not make or sell locks but rather sets the standard, certifies locks against that standard and provides the system at no charge to over 80 countries globally for security and customs.

Following on from his experience setting standards for the airline industry at IATA, John believes in the principle that taking a central neutral position and creating value for each stakeholder can be the best business model.

This is the philosophy behind supporting the adoption of the IATA RFID standards for Permanent Baggage Tags – PBTs.

John earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, is an alumni of the London Business School and was a Harvard Fellow in 2017. He has served on the Boards of several companies, profit and non-profit.