MARK KAUFMAN has been fascinated with boats and boatbuilding since his childhood days of growing up boating with his family on Pennsylvania’s Allegheny River.  As a teenager, he built his firsts boats, a wood-and-canvas Trailcraft canoe and a Minimost hydroplane.  Later, he acquired a passion for flying and home-built-aircraft, and built a two-seat, high performance composite aircraft.  After college, Mark became interested in aircraft restoration and restored an award-winning “tube and fabric” 1948 Piper Vagabond aircraft.  He holds instrument, commercial, and flight instructor ratings.  During the last ten years he has become an avid bicyclist and kayaker, and builds his own custom fillet-brazed bicycle frames and skin-on-frame kayaks.  Mark also has a passion for randonneuring (timed, long distance endurance cycling).  Mark is a technology educator at Garden Spot High School in New Holland, Pennsylvania teaching beginner and advanced woodworking as well as computer-aided drafting.  Many of his advanced woodworking students have built skin-on-frame canoes, stitch-and-glue kayaks, wood strip canoes, and skin-on-frame Aleutian and Greenland-style kayaks in addition to their regular course work.  He also teaches a number of adult education classes on skin-on-frame kayak construction.   Mark always looks forward to the classes he teaches at the WoodenBoat School.