About Mark

Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, I graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Music Education. After teaching music for four years within the Springfield school system, my position was eliminated when the city faced a budget shortfall. For the next 15 years, I bought, rehabbed and sold houses, wrote short stories, and often indulged in my fantasy of becoming a world traveler. Looking for a new beginning, I took the advice of my sister--already a seasoned ICU nurse--who suggested I try my hand at nursing. Upon graduating nursing school, I worked for one year in a small Connecticut ICU before taking a position as a staff nurse in the ICU at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. After 16 years, I needed a change. In 2014, I began a new chapter in my life when I accepted the position as the ICU Director, and later the ICU Nursing Director, at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. I remain in that position today. Finally, while my move to Africa and the position posed many challenges, it also provided me a gift beyond reckoning. I adopted a pair of sisters, the youngest of whom I met when she was admitted to the ICU with renal failure. After a twisting road of complications, she successfully received a kidney from her sister. Abandoned as children, and never having lived together, we are now a family in a home I daily fill with love, learning and lots of laughter.