"Rags to Riches" - by John J Arent

As a change of pace, once a month I am going to write a bio on a famous person.  This blog will be titled from "Rags to Riches" and appear monthly. My goal will be to share with you the background about a celebrated entrepreneur.  There are so many wonderful stories about people who “pulled themselves up by their shoe strings”.  These ground-breaking hard workers who catapulted themselves into prominent positions within the business world. My hope is to share with you how these people “invented” themselves and make a true difference in their own life as well as the lives of those around them.

My first edition of Business Entrepreneur is Mark Burnett.  You know Mark, don’t you?  I didn’t “know” him until I researched his background.  I knew “of him” due to the fact that there is rarely an evening where his name does not appear on our family TV screen.

Mark’s a TV and Executive Producer for a long list of blockbusters on TV.  He created Survivor and also was credited as creator of both The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice.  He serves as the Executive Producer of The Voice and has been involved with such highly rated shows as Shark Tank, The Contender, and Are you smarter than a 5^th grader?.  He has served as Executive Producer for the MTV Movie Awards and also three years running from 2010 through 2012 for the People’s Choice Awards.  He has also produced the Emmy Awards.

You can clearly see how Mark's background influenced his creation of several of these shows.  Mark grew up in the United Kingdom and came to California when he was 22 years old.  His first job in the US was as a nanny.  After being a nanny for a couple of years, he decided to go part-time selling T shirts at Venice Beach, CA.  Prior to coming to America, he was in the British Army and eventually rose to the rank of Section commander in the Parachute Regiment.  He was based in Northern Ireland and saw action in the Falklands in 1982.  His military background and fierce drive for competitive competition led him eventually to creating “Survivor”   


 This competitive spirit can be seen in the Apprentice, Contender and other shows that he has produced. The T-shirt business can be closely aligned with the Shark Tank where new business start-ups are discovered. Bringing these ideas and past history to fruition is the reason that I chose him for my first in a series.   The rest is now his history and legacy.


















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