After a year of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kansas, he switched to art where he was selected Outstanding Senior upon graduation. With a degree in Advertising and Editorial Art, he started working for Scholastic Magazines in New York as an art director where he designed 2 monthly magazines. Within 2 years he was working exclusively as a freelance illustrator. Shortly thereafter he moved to Prairie Village, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, where he still resides. He has won numerous awards for his illustrations and is a member of the New York Society of Illustrators.

Aside from advertising and editorial illustration, Mark has worked on anniversary posters for Boy Scouts of America [75th], Western Auto [75th], Mueller Industries [75th], Intertec Publishing [100th], numbered and signed prints, and created 25 postal stamps for the Republic of the Marshall Islands commemorating the 20th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon. The paintings were unveiled in a ceremony at the World Stamp Expo in Washington, D.C. He also has been commissioned for many portraits both corporate and personal.

In addition, Mark taught at the Kansas City Art Institute for 7 years. Some of his classes were junior and senior illustration, senior thesis, book illustration, anatomy, professional practice, character development, figure drawing, painting techniques and sequential illustration.

Mark is a craftsman and a perfectionist yet an extremely fun loving individual. He has 2 daughters he loves dearly, and of whom he is justifiably proud. Both are artistic, one in photography and the other in painting.