John Burke

John Burke was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in 1948 not long after Pete and Toni Culler came ashore and made their home in the same town. John spent much of his early life in and out of the Culler house and shop-just across the street from his own family's home. The influence shows. John initially played with skiffs; row, sail and outboard, as well as catboats, and anything else that would float and was handy. He was 14 when got his first paid boat job as a deckhand aboard a passenger vessel...See more

John Burke was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in 1948 not long after Pete and Toni Culler came ashore and made their home in the same town. John spent much of his early life in and out of the Culler house and shop-just across the street from his own family's home. The influence shows. John initially played with skiffs; row, sail and outboard, as well as catboats, and anything else that would float and was handy. He was 14 when got his first paid boat job as a deckhand aboard a passenger vessel, and later earned his college tuition primarily working on fishing boats, graduating from Providence College in 1970. In 1975, John began to learn from Pete the "Culler" way of building and maintaining traditional wooden boats. The two were planning on building boats together, until Pete's untimely death in 1978. Since 1995 John has captained ferryboats on Penobscot Bay, working for the Maine State Ferry Service, where he enjoys a unique view of some of the finest watercraft in the world. See less