Mark Dessauer

Communications Director

Office: 919-843-3077
Fax: 919-843-3083
mark_dessauer@unc.edu

Bio

As the Communications Director, or "Storycatcher," for Active Living By Design, Mark Dessauer works with communities across the United States to help them highlight their amazing progress in improving policies and environments to increase physical activity and healthy eating, primarily through media, conferences and website venues. Mark provides communications training, graphic design, presentation development, and technical assistance to the entire ALBD staff as well as grantees, while also maintaining the ALBD and HKHC websites.

Mark's site visits with ALBD and HKHC communities allow him to capture a wealth of diverse photos, interviews, videos and stories. "The depth and passion sitting around a table at community meetings are amazing, and almost impossible to capture in a presentation, video or website," he says, "but we will try." He is honored to have seen the Active Living and Health Eating movements grow from their early stages, and believes that conventional wisdom is finally starting to support the concept of communities creating health.

Previously, Mark worked for the North Carolina Progress Board as Communication Director and Policy Analyst. Prior to that, he was a Research Associate at the Global Information Infrastructure Commission at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He also served as a telecommunications analyst for the US Embassy in Switzerland.

Mark earned a B.A. in mass communications with a minor in German and film at Miami University, and a master's in international communications at American University. He is currently working on a certificate in documentary studies at Duke University.

Outside of the office, he loves to tell stories, play, and work with his two boys and wife. Mark enjoys running, playing, pilates, hiking and fencing. He is also involved with a local CSA and tends/manages robust vegetable gardens at home and at his children's elementary school in Durham.

Active Living / Healthy Eating Story

My interest in active living was not an ‘aha' moment or a steep learning curve; rather, it seemed like a normal way of life. Growing up in an older suburb in Cincinnati, everything was within range of my interest and Keds. My move to Washington DC for graduate school reinforced this way of life. I didn't need a car because I could reach most things by foot, Metro, bike or bus. Things changed when I moved to North Carolina. Commutes, traffic, and car dependency was a bigger cultural shock to me than the adjustment to college basketball as the official Spring activity. My family chose to live in a walkable neighborhood in Durham, however, which allowed us to bike to Durham Bulls baseball games, the farmers market, and my son's school. Through our work at ALBD, I'm encouraged and hopeful that more communities can find what works to make their neighborhoods walkable and bikeable.

As a child, it was recounted that my father's sister in Germany disowned herself from the family because my grandmother sold the family garden plot. I found it odd that a garden could mean so much to a person, but I later learned that the garden had sustained the family during and after the Second World War. My American grandmother had two gardens outside of her kitchen door and was immensely proud of their contribution to our Sunday meals and lovely floral arrangements. Despite these experiences, eating from my own backyard was not extremely important to me until recently. In the spring of 2009, we prepared a garden space with ample sunlight, and we now have many fresh vegetables to supplement our weekly CSA box. Our kids also know they have their own snack bar in the garden. It is amazingly convenient, tasty, economical and healthy.