John Gourley Pierce was a Peterborough land surveyor and the son of John Wesley Pierce, also a land surveyor, and Mable Pierce. He graduated from Queen's University, served with the Royal Canadian Engineers in Italy and Europe during WWII where he won the Military Cross for Valour. On returning from the war, he joined his father's survey firm, which then became Pierce & Pierce Land Surveyors, in Peterborough, Ontario. In 1947 he completed the survey of the Ontario-Manitoba boundary started by his father in the 1920's. He was President of the Ontario Land Surveyors Association. He was also active in the community and earned numerous awards, among them a citation for outstanding contribution by the Ontario Land Surveyors Association, a City of Peterborough Award of Merit, Rotary's Paul Harris Fellowship, a Sir Sandford Fleming College Fellowship in Applied Education, and the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award.