Mark’s diving career started in May of 2003 when his wife planned a 21^st anniversary trip to Cancun.  This gave him the opportunity and the excuse he needed to try diving.   He had wanted to dive since watching Jacques-Cousteau diving from the Calyspo on TV as a kid.  Mark didn’t have time to go through a scheduled class prior to the trip, so he did his classroom training/testing at MSD, pool training in Cancun and finished his open water dives with MSD.  Since then Mark has been back through the openwater course twice when each of his daughters were certified.

He has been boat/drift diving in Cancun, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres (island of women), river and cavern diving in Crystal River, FL (where the manatees live) and wreck diving in Lake Superior and Cancun. Mark enjoys both warm water and cold water diving.

Mark’s certifications include Openwater, Advanced, Rescue, Ice Diver, DAN Diving Emergency Management Provider and Divemaster as of April 2006. He is a member of the Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Volunteer Dive Rescue Team.

Mark’s favorite dive site is South Alstead, because of it’s abundance of fish, forests, beaver hut, island, submerged roadway, the many routes to dive, it’s great access and the fact there is always something there to photograph.

He enjoys underwater photography and videography, night diving, fun dives, showing new divers something cool and diving deep with experienced divers as well.  “I haven’t had a bad dive yet!”

When Mark isn’t diving he’s an architect for the design/build firm of Kuepers, Inc, a Baxter city council member and a member and First Aid/Toboggan instructor for the National Ski Patrol at Ski Gull and Lutsen.