ND , Urban Planning/Civil Engineering

Mark L. Butler was born in Oildale, California on March 20, 1959.  Mark’s professional career for many years has been in the field of Land Use Planning (City Planner).  He has been semi-retired since 2005 and, for several years now, has been devoting the majority of his time to writing and to directing non-profit Eagle Literary Foundation eaglelit.org.  Mark has been qualified to testify as an Expert Witness on Land Use Planning matters in Idaho's Third, Fourth and Fifth District Courts.At very early age Mark questioned the so-called standard of ordinary living, bothered by its lack of real, lasting solidity and security.  He studied with Author Vernon Howard from 1972 until Vernon Howard’s death in 1992.  He and his family, Linda, Rebecca and Richard, all moved to Eagle, Idaho in 1994 and started the non-profit Eagle Literary Foundation where he currently writes and teaches weekly classes.  Over the past 20 years Mark has authored several articles and has spoken at seminars in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, California, Arizona and, most recently, in Austin, Texas. In an Idaho Valley Times newspaper interview Mark described his work as follows,“What we are trying to do is break habitual behaviors, but first there has to be an awareness of being pained or at a dead end before there is a genuine incentive to break them. If we are satisfied with subduing our pain by becoming one of the many ‘holics,’ that is, a workaholic, an alcoholic, or even a spiritual-aholic, there’s no valid interest in finding out about our inner-self so as to experience the inwardly free and happy life we were intended to live.We practice, for example, breaking the nagging thoughts that take over and won’t let us sleep. Or as an exercise, we take a week and watch for painful emotions like anger and we deliberately work to ‘Catch and Break’, catch a thought or emotion and break it, drop it.The whole purpose is to live more happily and healthfully.” An Idaho Statesman newspaper writer described Mark’s work through the Foundation as follows, “The Eagle Literary Foundation has become a way for people from Boise and Western Ada County to meet and discuss topics as grand as the meaning of life and as relevant as how to cope with anger in traffic congestion.”