In college, Mark sat in the back of a boat, relaying the coach's workout plan and steering the shell in the right direction. In his role as coxswain for the crew team, he discovered a love of coaching and supporting. Those dual roles translated to classrooms in the Washington, D.C. area and Budapest, Hungary, before settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

Founder of Spiral Leadership Group, Mark served as the executive director of the Gabriel Center for Servant-Leadership for six years, where he also facilitated teams from faith communities and nonprofits since 2007. 

Mark holds a B.A. in English and Art History from the University of the South, an M.A. in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia State University.  

Certified to administer the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI), Mark encourages individuals and groups to explore and develop their skills in emotional intelligence. To that end, he co-authored a chapter in The Collaborative Change Library: A Living Community of Global Knowledge. He also edited Becoming a Servant-Leader: A Workbook for Bringing Skill and Spirit to Professional and Personal Life. 

He is currently earning a Diploma in Executive Coaching from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University.

His writing has appeared in NANO Fiction, The Mondegreen, The Centenary Journal of the Bread Loaf School of English, and South Writ Large. He has been nominated for publication in Best American Essays and will be published in the forthcoming Elk River Writers Workshop 10th Anniversary Anthology.