Some things you might be interested to know about Christie:
Christie is a poet, a flautist, a gardener,
a baker, a biker, and a candlestick burner,
a casual worm-herder, a serious reader, a truant Mennonite,
a doodler, a vegetarian, a romper,
a joker, a philosopher, and a woman in love.
Christie's personal history:
Christie was born Miriam Christine Benner (called "Christie" from birth) in the summer of 1982. Christie spent much of her childhood playing in the trees and gardens of her family's home in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The fourth of five children, she never wanted for playmates or entertainment. Thankfully, despite her mother's warnings that walking around the house while reading was a perilous habit, Christie avoided serious injury and arrived at adulthood unscathed and well read.
After earning her Bachelor's degree in English Literature and Secondary Education and minoring in Theater at Eastern Mennonite University, Christie first moved to Pittsburgh in 2004 to participate in the Pittsburgh Urban Leadership and Service Experience (PULSE) Program. While working for the Pittsburgh Public Theater and teaching at The Pittsburgh Project, Christie found herself falling in love with--for the first time--a city. She stayed in Pittsburgh the following year, teaching 10th grade English in a high school just north of Pittsburgh.
Christie first began to consider the possibility of graduate school some time during her time at EMU when a professor encouraged her to take her GREs, but she wrote it off as a pipe dream. A rather harrowing year of teaching high school English pushed the question of "what next" forcefully to the forefront. In the Fall of 2006, Christie left her beloved City of Pittsburgh to pursue a Ph.D. in English Literature at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
Two and a half years later, coursework finished, Christie was ready to come home. Four months later, while out celebrating the completion of her first comprehensive exam, Christie met Mark.
All about Mark
Mark is a singer, a dancer, a spreadsheet romancer,
a chef, a scooterer, and a cross-country runner,
a first-time filmmaker, a world citizen, a spiritual mutt,
a goofball, not a vegetarian, an entrepreneur,
an eco-evangelist, a body surfer, and a man in love.
Mark was launched into the world by loving parents in 1974. He grew up mostly in Los Angeles, CA, where he came to believe that shorts worked better than long pants under all conceivable weather conditions. His younger brother, Warren, agreed. His older sister, Christina, didn't. This belief was put to the test when the family moved to Vienna, Austria for two years, where we all learned the value of ski pants during Alpen blizzards.
The family returned to Los Angeles for Mark's first through eighth grade years, when he learned a few critical lessons unrelated to pants. Lesson 1: Free time is hard to find after second grade. Lesson 2: He wasn't very interested in practicing piano. Or clarinet. Or trumpet. Lesson 3: He loves to read books that reveal scientific factoids.
Then back to Vienna, Austria for a couple years. All was going pretty well--until his older sister pulled him aside and encouraged him to "get a life." Then things got a lot better. Mark trimmed his study time and explored all sorts of extra-curricular activities: choir, cross country running, student government, a science fair, remote control cars and boats, and filmmaking.
Mark returned to LA for 11th and 12th grade, diving deeper into singing through jazz and show choirs, not to mention a lead role in the musical "Once on this Island." High school ended with a miracle acceptance at Stanford, where he earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering. He also received an education in high-powered goofball a cappella music with the Stanford Fleet Street Singers.
After graduation, Silicon Valley and the Internet boom beckoned. Mark sought his fortune in one start-up after another, literally "living the dream" until the Internet boom turned into the Internet bust. Nearly a million frequent flier miles and a gigantic apartment in Tokyo dissolved into a 5-month stay with parents in Connecticut. One more start-up gave Mark the skills, the savings, and the gumption to set off in an entirely new direction as an eco-filmmaker, and YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) was born in 2006. After visiting all 50 United States to interview over 800 people about environmental issues, YERT brought Mark to Pittsburgh, PA, where he met Christie in the spring of 2009.
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