Mark currently lives in the White Mountains of central New Hampshire with his wife Sharon. Sharon has been his paddling partner for almost 20 years now ever since they first met on the Hudson River gorge in New York. Mark first started paddling a canoe as a teenager back in the 70's. In the early 80's he started kayaking. It was at that time that he fi rst joined American Whitewater. This past summer Mark received his ACA accreditation as a Swiftwater Rescue instructor from Charlie Walbridge. Since I first started boating I have seen many new boating opportunities emerge because of the leadership roll AW provides. We can now boat on good class II through V water on 511 release dates per year. This is an incredible success story I hope to be able to continue and even expand on. There are also several dam removal and relicensing decisions coming up in the next few years. I hope to continue the work that Tom Christopher, Bill Hildreth, John Frechella and several other predecessors have done.