Mark Machcinski

I grew up in southeast Michigan, just outside of Detroit, where winters were cold and summers were beautiful. Most of my youth was on the water, either skating on frozen lakes, or swimming like a fish in the summer. At a young age, with the influence of my private pilot father, I learned to fly gliders and single engine planes. This led me to follow the passion of flying by joining the Civil Air Patrol, an organization which helped shape me as a person who helps others and become leader (it was also during this time that I first visited Key West with my family.)

I attended college at the University of Michigan as an USAF ROTC cadet. After suffering through yet another freezing winter in Michigan, I decided it was time to move to warmer places, so I enlisted in the USAF with hopes of traveling the world to those warm places. Unfortunately, you don't always get what you want, and I ended up in the mountains of Utah! Skiing was great, but the winters were worse than Michigan! Luckily my stay was brief and vacationing in Key West was easy! After a final cold hard winter I was able to move to a place with better weather, and a simple three year assignment led to a sixteen year stay in the beautiful northeast of Italy, in Friuli-Venezia-Gulia.

While in Italy I ended my military service and turned to the private world of international travel. With various companies I was able to travel to all corners of the globe, both warm and cold, beautiful and dangerous. And throughout all that time and travel, I always returned to Key West for vacation! After returning to the States with my wife, and living in several states both warm and cold, we continued to vacation in Key West! After so much vacationing here and being so in love with this place, we finally made the move to our home.

The beauty of this Island, the diversity of the people, the look of joy on tourists faces when they arrive (and sometimes shock of the things they see!) is why we love this place. I have convinced countless people to visit here, and every one of them has thanked me for showing them the beauty of this place. It is for this reason that I wish to help people realize the possibility of living in one of the greatest places in the world, and say “Welcome to your new home in Key West!”