Jack vanHartesvelt has had a distinguished career in hotel development and is currently President of Hartland Hotels. A speaker at numerous hotel industry forums and a frequent college lecturer, Jack was voted Outstanding Alumnus in 1982 from Michigan State University's School of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management from which he graduated in 1975. He has spearheaded a number of mission renovation projects, and the hallmark of all of them has been the organization of volunteer workers in a way that enables both skilled and unskilled laborers to come together and completely renovate a building in a few days at a considerably reduced cost.

Since 2002, he has executed an extreme makeover of four churches, including one in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico, and three buildings in Seattle, Washington used by local philanthropic organizations. Jack and his family are members of Mercer Island Presbyterian Church.