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Bio:
Mark was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1955. He was put up for adoption upon my birth (all 10 lbs 13 ounces of him) by his unknown biological mother. He was very fortunate to be adopted by 2 of the best parents that a baby could hope for Sam and Nola Hanna. Although he never knew that he was adopted until after both of his parents passed away. He could not have been loved more.
His mother was a stay at home mom who worked with him everyday to give him a head start. By the time he was 5 years old he could add, subtract, knew the multiplication tables and could divide. He had read every Hardy Boy book, knew all the fifty states and their capital cities and he could print and write, all by the age of five. He was way ahead of the rest of the children in kindergarten, but back then public schools did not advance children that young. When tested later in life at school his IQ was said to in upper 2 tenths of 1 percentile. However his grades did not reflect that, what a waste. His mom said, "All he did through the fourth grade was goof off, he was so bored."
He was generally a pain in the butt to his parents once he reached thirteen. He went to work for a carnival company. Later, he moved out of the house because of disciplinary problems. At the age of sixteen he lived in a seventeen foot long Cree travel trailer which was parked behind the carnival company. He continued to go to school and worked after school.
His father died when he was nineteen. He ended up taking over his small family business, an industrial scale company. He ran Acme Scale company although he really never liked it much.
When he was about 22 years old, he was dating a girl name Sheryl and she had an aggravating family. Well one afternoon he took off early and stopped off at a bar. Well he got drunk and when he picked her up from work, she was complaining about her mom again, so he said "Let's get married." ... 2 hours later and still loaded he was married. No big ceremony, just a preacher and a church janitor for a witness. Wow was his mom mad.
He was ready for a divorce in a month, but his mom said, "The first year is the toughest." He said he would give it more time. Well that marriage lasted one year and it was straight to a divorce court.
In the summer of 1978, Mark saw a Dean Martin in a 1966 movie as super spy Matt Helm. In the movie was a 1966 T-Bird convertible which was highly modified as a spy car. Mark was impressed by the way the top folded completely into the truck and the beautiful lines of the 1966 T-Bird. He found a 2 owner 1966 T-Bird and purchased it. He still owns that car today, although he seldom takes it out of the garage. It is a light blue called a "Diamond Blue" with a nave blue interior. He said, "It's a shame that Dean Martin did not drive a 66 Corvette 427 convertible, because if my T-Bird was a Vette and in as good of shape, it would be worth at least $100,000 more." He could have actually purchased it at the time for less money than the T-Bird.
In August of 1980 he met the most important person in his life, Janice Campanello. He tried to get her to date him for 3 months. All he got was a firm "NO" over and over, before finally she said yes. They finally went out on a date and they are still together today. Even though it has been over 25 years and they never officially got married. Who says you can't be happy without marriage.
While in his mid twenties, he started purchasing rental properties. He was a lousy landlord and un-emotionally equipped to handle the frustrations of dealing with tenants who were hell bent of stiffing him for the rent money. So he started a business called Evictalert, which kept track of people who were evicted in and around the greater Cincinnati area. Landlords would call the business to check if a person had a history being repeatedly evicted. That business branched out into being a credit bureau and reselling consumer credit reports to landlords. From there it added more major credit bureau networks and in 1988 started selling credit reports to businesses in all 50 states.
In the late 1980's Mark wanted to fulfill a dream of learning how to fly. He knew that Janice would have a coronary, so he would sneak off to the Harrison Airport twice a week in the afternoon for a one hour flight lesson. In about 4 months he was about ready to take his flight test, when his instructor had a personal problem and had to unexpectedly cancel a flight lesson. An airport clerk called Mark's house and left a message that his flight training had been cancelled. Needless to say the gig was up, and that was almost the end of Mark and Janice. It all worked out in the end and by the end of 11 months total, Mark had accumulated 162 hours of flight time, as well as the following flight ratings. Single Engine Land, Multi-Engine Land Airplane, Instrument Pilot Rating, Commercial Pilot Rating, and Glider rating. Mark went hog wild and was flying all over the country and purchased his first plane. It was a twin engine Piper Seneca all weather aircraft with known icing and radar capability. One year and 1000 flight hours later he sold the Seneca and purchased a 1976 Cessna 421-C pressurized cabin class twin engine aircraft.
As Mark flew all over the country he noticed that aircraft fuel prices could vary more than one dollar per gallon from airport to airport. In 1992 he started a company called, Fillup Flyer Fuel Finder, whose computers kept track of fuel prices available to general aviation aircraft at the more than 1800 airports located in the 48 continental US. Although the company is still in business, it barely ever made money, as Mark later discovered that most aircraft owners just didn't care about saving 50 cents a gallon for aircraft fuel. The old saying proved true, "If you have to ask how much, you can't afford to fly your own plane."
When the internet took off in 1994, the businesses adapted to the change. As search engine positioning became more important, they developed various methods to get their products to the top of the search engine results. As an off-shoot Mark started providing these services to other businesses as well.
In June of 2004 Mark purchased a 45' Travel Supreme Motorcoach in preparation of his attempt at playing poker on the road. Mark loves to play poker, but not in a quite serious mode. No his style is to laugh, sing and make jokes.
September of 2004 Mark, Janice, and their three West Highland Terriers left Cincinnati and started playing poker. Mark is not a big high dollar live player. He loves to play multi-table tournaments. If he plays live action, it is only because he can not find a good tournament to play. He prefers No-Limit Holdem to Limit Holdem, but he has won tournaments in Omaha HL8 and in Omaha High. His best Limit Holdem finish was placed 14th out of 1417 players in Tunica 2004. He can and will play all games in a tournament setting. If you do see him playing live action, it will likely be a lower dollar No-Limit game, usually $2-$5 blind, but sometimes as high as a $10-$20 blind No-Limit game. Mark has won multi-table satellites into 10K events both live satellites and on-line.
Even though Mark has won numerous tournaments, and has made a TV final table, Mark claims his proudest tournament accomplishment was his 14th place finish in the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions. Mark played great even though he had Mike Matusow on his immediate left shoulder, and Steve Danneman next to Mike for 14 hours the 1st day of the tournament and was still able to be 8th in chips at the end of the day. On the second day of the three day event, Mark while still 8th in chips with 14 players remaining in the tournament, lost to Phil Hellmuth when Mark's black pocket nines, ran into Phil Hellmuth's red pocket tens with all the money going in pre-flop.
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