A member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Board of Governors since 2015, John Harris III served as secretary from 2018 to 2024 and will become chairman in 2025.

Harris was a three-year starter on the wrestling team and had a career record of 59-20 from 1969-72 at Battle Creek Central High School in Battle Creek, Michigan. After receiving the Most Improved Wrestler award as a junior, he was co-captain as a senior and qualified for the state tournament while helping Battle Creek to a third place finish.

He was a four-year starter with a career record of 117-19-5 from 1973-77 while helping Grand Valley State University to a 45-4 dual meet record. Harris was a three-time Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference champion and two-time NAIA All-American, reaching the national finals in 1976 and 1977 when he helped GVSU to a runner-up finish. He won multiple tournament and invitational titles, including twice winning the Michigan Open that included all Michigan colleges. He received the Suggitt Award, presented to the team member who was most “brutally aggressive while being uninhibited by adversity,” in 1976 and the Most Valuable Wrestler award as a senior in 1977. Harris qualified for the 1973 United States Junior World Final Trials and the 1976 Olympic Trials, and had a 5-1 record while wrestling on an NAIA Cultural Exchange team that competed in Japan and South Korea. He was inducted into the Grand Valley State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988, the second class inducted.

A substantial $3 million gift by John, his wife, Diane, and the Harris family — Thomas Harris, his wife, Tammi, and John and Diane’s children, John and Meredith — helped the return of the men’s varsity program and the formation of a women’s varsity program that begins this year at Grand Valley State. Their generosity includes the new home of the Grand Valley wrestling program, the Harris Family Athletic Complex. The facility is named in honor of Jack and Dorcas Harris, parents of John and his brother, Thomas. The Harrises became key supporters of the Lakers' wrestling program when John joined the team in 1972. The Harrises also funded the start-up of the women's wrestling program and the exercise physiology lab at Lourdes University in Sylanina, Ohio.

Overcoming a childhood learning disability, Harris became an outstanding student who received his bachelor’s degree from Grand Valley State University and his master’s degree in education from the University of Toledo.

He served as an assistant wrestling coach at the University of Toledo in 1977-78 and was head coach of the St. Josephs of Sylvania (Ohio) grade school and junior high wrestling program from 1994-2006.

Harris established the first wellness program at Owens-Illinois, Inc. during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He and his wife Diane then founded Harris HealthTrends, Inc. in 1987, an entrepreneurial corporation specializing in the prevention of disease and the reduction of health care costs. Harris HealthTrends grew to have over 400 employees, with clients in all 50 states, and in six other countries, on three different continents, and helped shape the prevention industry into what it is today. Harris merged Harris HealthTrends with four other companies to become Axia Health Management in 2005, and sold Axia to Healthways in 2006.

Harris then formed another company, Performance pH, which utilized a variety of people-oriented strategies to help employers improve business performance. He sold that company in 2018. He has over 45 years of experience in the health management field in both the corporate and private sectors.

Harris speaks internationally and has authored numerous publications on employee health while also having served on the boards of Lourdes University, The Health Enhancement Organization (HERO), Mercy Health Partners, the Bon Secours Mercy Health Foundation, Health Promotion Advocates, The Health Project, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and a number of for-profit businesses. He was also the founding chairman of the Ohio Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

The Harrises remain philanthropic in the wrestling, disease prevention, religious, and youth development sectors.

He and his wife, Diane, have a son, John Harris IV, and a daughter, Meredith.