John Haines was born in Baltimore, MD on November 11, 1941, less than a month before World War II began. He graduated from Punahou School in Honolulu, HI in 1959 and in 1963 from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Three years later, he received his Doctor of Law degree from the University of Virginia. He then served two years in the United States Army, the majority of that time as a captain assigned to the 470th Military Intelligence Group at Fort Amador in the Canal Zone. He there met his wife, the former Esther Maria Ortega, and they were married in February 1969. They now have five children, 10 grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Also in 1969, he began work as an attorney for the US Government agency which then operated the Panama Canal, and he retired as the General Counsel of that entity at the end of 1999 when the United States transferred stewardship of the waterway to the Republic of Panama. John and Esther now live in Coronado, about a block from the Pacific Ocean on Panama's southern coast.

John never received formal training in art, but he has been painting since the age of 15; as far as he can remember, he has been drawing since he was about 5.