Principal founder of IANDS, Inc.; Author, Hospital and Hospice Administrator; Co-Founder of Eternea

Mr. Audette is a native of South Florida whose professional career spans over three decades of senior executive positions in hospital and hospice administration and physician practice management, as well as the performing arts and public broadcasting.

He earned a BA degree in History and Sociology from Augusta College and a MS degree in Sociology from Virginia Tech.

John's interest in NDEs began in 1960 at age 8 in third grade when he heard his first NDE account from his best friend's mother, who had been resuscitated following a sudden heart attack. His interest was then dormant until 1974 when he met Raymond Moody in Augusta, GA, when Raymond was a medical student just beginning his research, which later led to the publication of *Life After Life*.

What led to meeting Raymond is an amazing story, full of unmistakable synchronicities. He helped Raymond with his research and through him met several experiencers and also Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who later wrote the Foreward to *Life After Life* and greatly encouraged John to move forward with his idea to form an association focused on STEs for experiencers, researchers and the interested public. He also met Drs. Ring, Greyson and Sabom through Raymond in 1976-77.


Some of his job titles have been:

1. Associate Administrator, JFK Medical Center, Atlantis, FL
2. President & CEO, Primus Physician Services, LLC, Miami, FL
3. Executive Director, Hospice of Palm Beach County
4. Executive Director & founder, Hospice of Central Illinois, Peoria, IL
5. Health Planning Associate, Illinois Central Health Systems Agency, Peoria, IL
6. Part-time faculty, Illinois Central College, East Peoria, IL
7. Executive Director, Palm Beach Festival of the Performing Arts, Palm Beach, FL
8. Special Consultant to the Administration, FL Phil. Orchestra, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
9. Executive Director, Foundation for WLRN Public Radio & Television, Miami, FL


He is also the principal founder of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc. (IANDS.org) with co-founders Raymond Moody, MD; Bruce Greyson, MD; Michael Sabom, MD; and Kenneth Ring, PhD. in 1975, the year *Life After Life* was published. The first organizational meeting was in 1977 in Charlottesville, VA. Original incorporation was 1978 in Peoria, IL.

John ran it from 1978-1982 from his homes in Peoria, IL and later Chicago, IL. It was moved to University of Connecticut, Storrs, in 1982, when Dr. Ken Ring took over operations. The inaugural board meeting was at Washington University in St. Louis with John Audette, Ken Ring, Mike Sabom and Bruce Greyson attending. John relocated back to Florida from Chicago in 1982 to begin serving as Executive Director of the Hospice of Palm Beach County.

Mr. Audette contributed several chapters about spiritually transformative experiences and non-local consciousness to several scholarly books in the company of such prominent authors as Ervin Laszlo, Deepak Chopra, Jane Goodall, Gary Zukav, Stan Grof, Jean Houston, Larry Dossey and others. He is also gratefully acknowledged in numerous other books on these subjects by various well-known authors whom he assisted dating back to 1976.

Mr. Audette now serves as CEO of Eternea, Inc. (eternea.org), which he co-founded with prominent neurosurgeon and best-selling author Dr. Eben Alexander and the late Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth man to walk on the moon. Eternea’s current chairman is prominent author, humanist, futurist and systems theorist, Dr. Ervin Laszlo, based in Tuscany, Italy.

Mr. Audette is an honorably discharged veteran with over six years of voluntary service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era. He lives in Boca Raton, FL, where he and his wife raised their daughter, Kelly, now 27.