Mark Michael and his wife Margarita Prieto live in Washington DC.  Together, they are co-founders of Lakehurst Farm Flowers, a start-up flower operation on their property in Central Maine.

Prior to flower farming, the bulk of Mark's career was spent bootstrapping a start-up into a market leader. Together with his brother, he founded Occasions Caterers in Washington DC, growing it into the country’s largest off-premise caterer with additional vertical businesses including event staffing, corporate catering, and the industry’s most widely licensed software catering platform.  

After selling his businesses, he spent a year as a Fellow at Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative.  After a course of study focused on food systems, Mark is now consulting and collaborating with food systems change-makers in the Mid-Atlantic and the Hudson Valley to help create and grow definable, sustainable regional food systems.  He is currently a strategic advisor for 4P Foods, a food hub with a network of 250 farms based in Northern Virginia.  He is also on the board of directors of Arcadia Farm Center, a regional food center located in Alexandria, Virginia.  Other current board activity includes: Sandy Spring Bank, a publicly traded regional community bank (SASR), and the 11th Street Bridge Project (set for completion at the end of 2025), a $150MM pedestrian bridge and community park linking the resourced sections of Washington DC with the under-served Wards of Washington DC.