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John Mapes (Orange, CA) is a full-time percussion educator, arranger, visual designer, program coordinator, clinician, and adjudicator based out of Southern California. He received his Bachelor of Arts in percussion from California State University, Long Beach in 2000. He has 15 years of drum corps teaching/design experience and 25 years of indoor percussion teaching/design experience, with an unprecedented 45 WGI medals since 2005. He also wrote and produced a routine for America’s Got Talent with Pulse Percussion in 2023.
He started with Pulse Percussion behind the scenes in 2008 as an arranger, and within three short years helped take the ensemble to its first PIW Gold Medal in 2010 as the program coordinator, battery arranger, and visual designer. Since then, the ensemble has medaled ten more times and obtained five more championships titles in 2014, 2016, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Mapes recently joined the design team as the battery arranger for the Mandarins Drum and Bugle Corps in 2025. He was the battery arranger for the Blue Stars Drum and Bugle Corps from 2013 to 2016. He also worked with the Blue Devil B Corps as the percussion arranger from 2007 to 2012.
In 2005, he started teaching at Chino Hills High SChool, WGI Scholastic World Class finalists from 2008 to 2023. Chino Hills is a 14-time medalist and won the championship in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2024.
Along with fellow designer and instructor Ian Grom, Mapes co-founded Box-Six.com in August 2008, which is the exclusive publisher of their original indoor percussion and marching band shows. Mapes is a Yamaha Artist. He became a member of the WGI Advisory Board in 2007 and has been a member of the WGI Percussion Steering Committee since 2010.