Board of Advisors – Internal Operations
Working as management consultant for the University of Missouri System, Mark advises the four campus University system administration and University clients on strategic planning, executive, and financial management matters.
Mark also teaches undergraduate and graduate classes as a certified master facilitator for two Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation classes, and has delivered programs to over 400 Kansas City area participants who have been dislocated from their corporate job, giving them skills needed to start or grow a small business.
Mark is an entrepreneur himself. A multi-degree graduate of the University of Kansas began his career as a commodities trader, working as a floor trader on several commodities exchanges. He acquired a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade in the early 1980s and started his first company, Colonial Trading Company, Inc., at the age of 28.
The commodities company grew rapidly throughout the 1980s. A holding company, Colonial Companies, Inc., was formed to incorporate an integrated growth strategy. The company expanded aggressively into the wholesale building materials distribution industry and was ranked as a top 100 building materials distribution organization nationally. When the company was sold to a large multi-national corporation in 2000, it encompassed 11 offices and/or distribution locations in the United States and Europe with over $250 million sales and nearly 500 associates.
Mark is also the founder of two non-profit organizations, Shawnee Mission Education Foundation and Leadership Institute for Teens, and currently serves on the boards for several for-profit companies and non-profit organizations.