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Mark L Hunnibell
Born on August 22, 1957 in Providence, Rhode Island, Mark Hunnibell is the second of four children of Kenneth Hunnibell and Carol Dutra. Both Kenneth and Carol were students at the Rhode Island Sch...view moreBorn on August 22, 1957 in Providence, Rhode Island, Mark Hunnibell is the second of four children of Kenneth Hunnibell and Carol Dutra. Both Kenneth and Carol were students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), as had been many in Mark's family. They moved into an old farmhouse in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. When Mark was about six years old, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother and three sisters to a home about forty-five miles north. Six years later, they moved to Kensington, California-a small community just north of Berkeley. Mark attended secondary schools in Richmond, California, graduating in June 1975. Two months later, he flew back to live with his father in Rehoboth to enter RISD as a Freshman in Providence, Rhode Island.
After graduating from RISD in 1980, Mark began work on the 1919 Henderson motorcycle "basket case" that his father had given to him a couple years earlier. That same year, motivated to put his RISD degree to use, Mark drove back from California where he was living to temporarily stay with his father in Rehoboth while he worked on his portfolio to seek a career as a designer.
On the way back from California, Mark and his friend Geoff spent a night with Rich, one of Geoff's friends, in Lubbock, Texas. Rich was in pilot training in the US Air Force (USAF). Rich told Mark that his RISD degree qualified him to enter the USAF to be a pilot. A month later, back in Rehoboth, after a long night working on his design portfolio, Mark announced that he now planned to join the Air Force to be a pilot. The announcement seemed so preposterous that his father-always the practical man-insisted he meet with a USAF recruiter to find out if Mark qualified. Mark found it was a real program and that he qualified. His father asked what he was going to do. Mark replied, "Oh, it's done," explaining the process had already begun.
By May 1983, after being accepted into the USAF, Mark arrived at his first assignment as a C-130 pilot at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. In October 1985, he transferred to the "the Hurricane Hunters," the WC-130 unit at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. At the rank of Captain, Mark completed his Air Force and was honorably discharged on January 5, 1989. Two months later he began a twenty-nine-year career as a pilot for American Airlines.
In 2000, Mark decided it was time to dust off the baskets of the old 1919 Henderson project if he was ever going to complete it. He researched the history of the make and model, while also searching for experts to help him with what he knew would be the substantial work needed. He discovered C.K. Shepherd's book, Across America by Motor-Cycle, igniting what became a wildfire: the dream of recreating Shepherd's ride one hundred years later.
Without a machine shop of his own, Mark was reliant on others to complete the "heavy lifting" of the restoration. This was nearly a two-decades-long process during which experts went to extraordinary lengths to bring both the engine and frame back from what would normally be considered their graves.
In June 2018, Mark retired from American Airlines as a Boeing 737 captain, having previously been a captain on the McDonnell-Douglas MD-80, Airbus A300, and Boeing 767/757, as well as a first officer on the Boeing 727 and Airbus A300, and a flight engineer on the McDonnell Douglas DC-10.
Also in 2018, Mark's 1919 Henderson was finally roadworthy. He devoted his full energies to final touches, "driver training," adding safety equipment, and the endless task of researching and planning his cross-country attempt in 2019.
Across America by Motor-Cycle: Fully Annotated Centennial Edition reflects Mark's determination to discover and tell the rest of the story of Charles Kenilworth Shepherd's amazing journey. Mark also plans to document his own journey in a new book with the working title, Chasing Charles: Across America by Motor-Cycle II.view less