John J. McNaughton; Founded Vocational Education Programs

John J. McNaughton, who founded National Education Corp., the country’s largest and most diversified network of vocational schools and training programs, died Wednesday. He was 78.

McNaughton lived in Newport Beach and died of complications of a heart attack, said his son, Kent.

National Education Corp. began in Orange County 31 years ago as a provider of correspondence courses for forest fire spotters. It grew into a global operation with 60 schools and training centers around the world and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

McNaughton was the son of a real estate broker in Winnipeg, Canada. His mother was a movie actress who left his father when he came home one day and announced that he had lost their home in a poker game. She packed her bags and took their son to California, but died when McNaughton was 8.

He was raised by relatives in Burlingame and Glendale, attended USC and served in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II under a commanding officer named Kenneth Hahn, who would later become the long-serving Los Angeles County supervisor.

After the Navy, McNaughton entered the advertising business with the J. Walter Thompson agency in Los Angeles. In 1950 he formed a small company with Wally Hunt, who later started his own lucrative business producing pop-up books and displays. After a third partner, Gordon Van der Boom, joined the company it began to attract mail-order businesses as clients, including Frederick’s of Hollywood.

McNaughton and his partners eventually decided to find their own product to sell through the mail. They imported bamboo bows and arrows from Japan and sold them through a business they called the Malibu Archery Co., formed in 1954.

From the archery business came the idea to offer correspondence courses for forestry workers. The first courses were aimed at teaching foresters how to spot fires. The success of the courses suggested a vast untapped market, so McNaughton’s company branched out to offer instruction in such areas as drafting, painting and motorcycle repair.

He eventually quit the advertising business and launched full time into education. In 1961, the $3-million firm had gone public, raising $300,000 in a stock offering. He began to buy vocational schools and in the process moved the business from Los Angeles to Newport Beach and then to Irvine.

During the 1960s and 1970s the company’s acquisitions included a chain of real estate licensing schools in California, the Spartan School of Aeronautics, which taught flying and flight maintenance, and several electronics and broadcasting schools owned by CBS.

The company’s success, McNaughton once observed, relied on an ability to fill in the gaps in the public education system by working closely with industry to provide the types of skilled employees businesses needed.

“The world is learning that many young people are just not college material,” he said some years ago. “We provide vocational training in many fields.”

McNaughton retired as chairman of the company in 1988, when it had more than 35,000 students enrolled in more than 52 U.S. schools and 150,000 students in correspondence courses. It was purchased by Harcourt in 1998 for almost $1 billion.

McNaughton is survived by his wife, Nancy; another son, Pat; and two grandchildren.

A memorial program will be held at noon Tuesday at the Newport Beach Country Club. Donations may be sent to Hoag Hospital Foundation, P.O. Box 6100, Newport Beach, CA 92658-6100.