Mark Bourgoin:  

Life What else can I say about myself that hasn't already been said in my school, college, and military biographies? Hmmm... I guess I could explain the things I put in my Life Profile. Yes, I am married without any kids. I met my wife, Breeanna, in May of 1998. She's from Grand Forks and Vancouver (both in British Columbia, Canada). We were friends for about a year before we started dating. We got married on July 12, 2001, when we were living together in England. We've had some rough times, but we always manage to make it through them stronger than before. I really do feel lucky; I've found my soulmate. In the profile, I also mentioned that I drive a sports car. I bought a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GTS in June 2003. It's a convertible with a V-6/3.0 L engine. Much faster than my other car (a 1998 Honda Civic LX). It's amazing that I haven't received any speeding tickets with it yet! I tend to drive with a bit of a lead foot, as the numerous speeding tickets I've received while driving with my Honda can attest to. Yes, I've been ticketed in 3 different countries, with too many to actually count. You'd think I'd learn, but driving over 100 mph is just too much fun! Might be why I love to fly so much; I'm a speed/adrenaline junkie! Speeding is a bit of an expensive hobby, though. Hmmm... maybe I should rethink this activity? Forget that! I have many activities I love to do in my free time. I like to play paintball, go mountain biking, play roller-hockey, and various outdoor activities. I'm an avid photographer. I've taken some pretty crazy pictures, with all the countries I've been to. You can see a bunch of them on the MH-53 Pave Low website. Classmates won't allow the actual URL in this bio, but all you have to do is put a dot com after mh-53pavelow. I'm sure you can figure it out. My biggest love is for downhill skiing. I started skiing when I was assigned to Fairchild AFB (see my military profile) and have been doing it ever since. I love to tear up double-black diamonds, cruise through the trees, and go flying off as many jumps as I can. There's nothing quite like it. If you've never been skiing or snowboarding, what are you waiting for?!! It's an instant addiction. School As you can see from my "where I've been" profile, I moved around a bit as a kid. My Dad worked for US Customs when I was growing up (he recently retired after 35 years with Customs) so I spent a lot of time along the border of the USA/Canada. I started Kindergarten in Fort Kent, ME in 1982. I moved away from Maine in October 1986, when I was in the 4th Grade, to Plentywood, MT. I was in Montana for two years before we moved again. In August of 1988 we moved to Calgary, AB, Canada, where I spent the next two years. My first year there was spent at St. Rita's and the next year was spent at Brebeuf. Both schools were Catholic schools, so that was "interesting" to say the least. We moved away from Alberta in August 1990. This time we headed north to Alaska. We were living on the Alaska/Yukon border, so the closest school was in Northway, AK; an Athabaskan Indian village. My first year in Alaska was spent taking a 100-mile round-trip school bus ride to school everyday. The heat didn't work all that great on the bus, so you really had to bundle up. After all, the temperature was frequently 50 below zero Fahrenheit outside! It was a really rough school, with a lot of racial fighting, so I only did 8th Grade there. The next year, Alcan (the border town I was living in) started up our own school. There were only 11 kids in it (Alcan's population was only 31 people!), so that was a unique experience. My last year in Alaska was spent in home-schooling, seeing as the Alcan Border school didn't really pan out. There were just too many different grade levels for our one teacher/principal to handle effectively. In June of 1993 I moved for the last time in my childhood to Grand Forks, BC, Canada. Those last two years of high school were the best years of my schooling. I made a lot of great friends, some of which I'm still friends with to this day. In June of 1995 I graduated from Grand Forks Secondary School with an "Honours Standing." College I enlisted in the US Air Force a month after I graduated high school, so all of my college/university education has been accomplished while on active duty; a challenge in itself, believe me! I completed an Associate in Applied Science degree in Avionic Systems Technology a couple of years ago. I have been working towards my BSc i...Expand for more