Who we are
Sunbelt Industries Inc. (Sunbelt) was established in 1994 and has been “Building Better Futures, One Job at a Time” for its clients since then. John Clarke is the President/CEO and owner of the company and Gabrielle Phifer-Clarke is the company CFO. Sunbelt Industries Inc. maintains offices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
John retired from the New Brunswick Housing & Redevelopment Authority after over 26 years of service in 2023. John served as Acting ED for the Franklin Township/Somerset County Housing Authority and Interim ED for the Atlantic City Housing Authority and Princeton Housing Authorities. John successfully implemented a $45 million-dollar Federal HOPE VI revitalization grant program that created jobs for local residents and built affordable housing and commercial office space within the City of New Brunswick. At the Redevelopment Authority for the City of New Brunswick, John has overseen more than $2.6 billion-dollars of redevelopment activities.
John Clarke is the former President of the Public Housing Authority Directors Association (PHADA) a national organization of 1,900 member housing agencies that represent over 1.9 million low-income housing units throughout the United States. The members manage small, medium, large, rural, and urban housing authorities that run programs including public housing, housing choice vouchers, Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), and a variety of other innovative public-private partnerships.
John was one of NJBIZ Magazine’s “Forty Under 40” top business professionals under the age of 40 in the State of New Jersey (Class of 2005). He holds a B.S. in Business from Farleigh Dickinson University (FDU-Madison) and he is a Certified Public Housing Authority and Redevelopment Authority Executive Director through the Department of Community Affairs and Rutgers University. He is the former President of the Board for the New Jersey Chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NJNAHRO) and has served as the Chair of the Marketing Sub-Committee for the National Professional Development Committee.
John was a member of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) for over two decades. He is also a former member of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, is a current Board member of the New Jersey-Joint Insurance Fund for Public Housing Agencies (NJ-JIF) and the Municipal Excess Liability (MEL). John is a former Board member and Treasurer of P.R.A.B. and a former President of the Board of New Jersey Association of Housing & Redevelopment Authority’s (NJAHRA). In addition, John is an adjunct instructor with Rutgers School for Government Services and teaches a number of courses for Housing and Redevelopment Agencies professionals and conducts Board and staff training for agencies and nonprofits.