Greetings to all of you… I stand before you to say a few words about my very good friend, Mark Garvey.


I know in my heart that when I was asked to speak of him today, he knew in his heart that he could count on me not to grieve, but rather to celebrate his wonderful life. That’s the way he would have wanted it…so that’s exactly what I plan to do.


It was not four score and 7 years ago, but rather 9,125 jokes ago; that I met this young, passionate, and ambitious man. Why 9,125 jokes ago you ask? Well, at an average of 1 joke per day for the many years that I’ve had the privilege of knowing him… and that doesn’t include repeat jokes, of which we all know there were too many of those to count…he made my life a joy.


What was not to like about this man? After all, for a young man like me from Boston, he even had the perfect name for a perfect Boston accent. You see to me, it was not Mark Garvey… to me; it will always be Mahk Gahvey.


It certainly takes more than a few words to describe him…

Son, Grandson, Husband, Father, Brother, Brother in Law, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew, Scholar, Engineer, Statistician, Behaviorist, Businessman, Company President, Packaging Professional, PMMI Board Member, Show Committee Chairman, PMMI Chairman, Writer, Lecturer, Consultant, Inventor, Golfer, Club Champion, Pilot, Musician, Singer, Juggler, Diet Expert, Gamer, Practical Joker, Dancing Dad, and Robin Hood in Tights actor.


When he and I strategized, we always liked to do things in 3’s. So I am going to take a few minutes and relate 3 personal stories about Mark that are true treasures. It was really difficult for me to pick only 3, because there were so many…everything from pranking poor innocent souls to ego busting shenanigans…he had the gift of never being afraid to reveal his true self… and I often took advantage of that.


Perhaps these are “you had to be there” stories, but let me share 3 keepers for all of you…


Story #1 - I met him many years ago at a trade show in Germany. We were staying at the same hotel and it didn’t take long for me to take notice of this guy. Let’s face facts; we all know that Mark had a room presence that couldn’t be ignored. There was a moment that I’ll always remember for the rest of my life. This was the first time I had seen one of his many talents in action. Mark had an uncanny knack of turning disappointment into comic relief… always turning a negative into a positive… almost a pride in being the butt end of a joke in life. A person can’t be comfortable with that unless they have a true sense of self-confidence…and Mark certainly had that. He missed his family so much while away that trip in Germany. The night before he was to return home, we bellied up to the bar at the hotel… it was one of our many talents that we were perhaps too good at… telling stories, jokes, doing bar tricks, and just entertaining both acquaintances and total strangers.

But that night, he was a man on a mission. He was strategizing a shopping spree to buy trinkets to bring home for his wife and his boys…no offense, young lady, but in those days it was PS…pre-Sara. He was off soon to return with a shopping bag of goodies. We resumed our positions at the hotel bar and so proudly, he pulled a little stuffed toy out of the bag. It was a cute little green pea pod. To this day, I remember it so well. It had a zipper on the side and when you opened it, there were little stuffed, smiley peas inside. Oh, how he beamed. He was showing it off to perfect strangers. He had found the perfect gift... a hand made keepsake of real German craftsmanship. He was so proud of himself.

As he carefully examined it before putting it back in the bag, I’ll never forget that look on his face as he noticed a small tag on the back, which read, “Made in Vermont”. . The Garvey “spoofed again” look. As with many things in his life, he turned the disappointment into laughter, realizing just how ironic it was that he had come all the way overseas for the first time to be bringing back a keepsake from Vermont. I’m telling you he should have been in one of those commercials, “stuffed peapod 20 Euros, look on Garvey’s face when he read the tag, “priceless”.


Mark enjoyed both spontaneity and challenge and had a way of sucking me right in to the whole scheme. It is the ridiculously subtle things that I remember so well. Things I would never find myself doing if I wasn’t with him. For example,


Story # 2 - Many years later our families went to visit our good friend, Chuck Yuska and his family at their new lake house in Virginia. Early one morning, Chuck had to make a run to the local True Value hardware to pick up some grease and fittings for his boat. Naturally, Mark enjoyed the spontaneity and challenge of making this road trip with Chuck… and… naturally convinced me to go along. Two things happened on that trip that were keepers…Mark gave Chuck a long engineering dissertation that only he could give on the mechanical aspects of proper lubrication and the function of grease zerc fittings. His arguments were so compelling that he convinced Chuck to buy enough grease to lubricate every chassis in the state of Virginia. To this day, I know Chuck still has tons of the grease cartridges in storage and probably always will. But that wasn’t good enough for Mark…

He still hadn’t sucked me in to anything on this trip. So there we were at the cashier, buying all of that grease when Mark noticed a display of mousetraps. He then started to work his magic on me. Games and gadgets were another of his passions. In short order, he convinced me to play a little game in line at the register. I’m a pretty levelheaded guy and only he could convince me to do the absurd. He challenged me to a little contest while waiting in line. One of us would set the mouse trip and the other would put his finger in and the object of the game was to pull our finger away quickly enough and not get pinched. To this day, I can’t believe he had me doing such a stupid thing. Neither of us could move fast enough and the more he got pinched, the more of a challenge it became to him.



Here we are in line with a dozen of Chuck’s neighbors in an area where he so desperately wanted to fit in and, as he often tells it, these two idiots are getting their fingers caught in the trap, yelling “ouch” at the top of their lungs. Quite a scene, I’ll tell you. …Chuck and his family moved shortly thereafter.


And finally, Story #3 – Bear with me on this one as many of you have heard before and some… more than once. But I have to tell it because it was his trademark spoof and I’m guessing that he felt it was never surpassed. I just need to set the record straight. Mark started it and brought this ultimate practical joke on himself. We were at a trade association meeting in Puerto Rico and in the casino until the wee hours of the morning. Our wives had gone to bed hours ago. I had lost a few hundred bucks at the blackjack table, which was actually not a bad night for me. The next morning at breakfast, he turned to my wife and asked her what I did with that big stack of hundred dollar chips that I had won the night before. Now she was all over me for the money that I had never won….Man… revenge on Garvey wasn’t an option, it was a necessity. To make a long story short, I bribed Sergeant Garcia, a hotel security policeman, complete with San Juan uniform, nightstick, and firearm, with a bottle of scotch to help me get this Garvey guy. A group of 20 or so of us were at dinner at a crowded restaurant a few nights later and right after ordering, in marched Sergeant Garcia with his assistant deputy. It was staged perfectly. He asked if there was a Mark Garvey in the restaurant. Mark sheepishly acknowledged that it was him. Now when have you ever seen Mark sheepish? I knew I had him. The Sergeant asked if he was driving a red rental van (which of course he was). He then asked Mark where he was at 3 o’clock that afternoon. Now he was at the Bocce tournament with 200 of us, but he was so totally flustered at this point that he couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t even remember what planet he was on at that point. The Sergeant told Mark that his van was seen leaving the scene of a bank robbery in San Juan that afternoon and he have to come down to the jail for questioning. Garvey was like silly putty at that point and as the police were pulling him at of his chair to cuff him, scared out of his wits, he turned to me and asked them if I could come with him. At which point, I said, “Sure Mark, I’ll come but can I take your picture first?” He still had no idea it was a scam and I’ll never forget the shrill in his voice when he screamed, “I’m going to jail and all you want to do is take my damned picture?” He then looked around the table at everyone and it hit him. He had been had…The scam to end all scams. He was so shook up when the joke was over and when the police left he had no idea what he even ordered for dinner. So there you have it, Mark Garvey – Puerto Rican fugitive…

That was one of the things that was great about him… Not only could really dish it out, but he could also take it so well.

I can’t tell you how many times, even up to his last days that he introduced me to people as, “This is the guy that had me arrested in Puerto Rico.”

I’d like to think that was the spoof for all of you that could never get one up on that incredible mastermind.


These were simple little things in the life of Mark Garvey, but life long memories that will be with me forever.


Fantastic memories also include the growing family years.

For many years, a group of families from the industry, the Bronanders, Garveys, Jacobsons, Schneiders, and Zaccheos got together at least twice a year as the kids were growing up. Those were great times. It was like the family edition of the “Big Chill”. We would change the venue each time, everything from pool parties to snow ball fights to just chilling and growing up together.


During my last visit with Mark, we sat out in his backyard, reminiscing, and talking candidly as we always did. He told me, and I know he told some of you, that he was not afraid of death. His only fears were the people and things that he would dearly miss out into the future. He always wanted to be in the heat of the action. Everyone knew how much joy that his family and friends brought to his life. That was first and foremost, but when it came to work, he told me straight out what truly made him most happy when at Garvey Corporation…

It was not his achievements with growing the company, the product line, or his accomplishments in the packaging industry…it was his sense of satisfaction in helping a long term Garvey employee in their time of personal need. His company was not a place to go to work, it was truly his second family that he both loved and respected.


I will always characterize Mark Garvey as a true behaviorist, both in his personal life and his very successful business life. His curiosity about different cultures, religions, and rituals always motivated him…intrigued him. I think that it was one of the things that made him truly unique when it came to his business sense. Mark was respected and successful in business but I truly feel that the success was not only his savvy and smarts, but his success was largely in part to his love of life and people. I call him a skill behaviorist because he truly wanted … no, actually he needed to know… his customers. He never measured their worth at the cash register…but rather what kind of people they were…what made them tick… their likes, dislikes, attitudes about life. This is what really juiced him up. People sensed that passion about him and that was a major factor why they associated and were attracted to him.


He could never learn enough and always wanted a second opinion. I can’t tell you many times over the years my phone would ring and the voice on the other end would say, “Yo, so let me ask you a question”… We fed off of each other and he always had a conviction about not what he should do… but what was the right thing to do.



In additional to his passion for the behavioral sciences, Mark also had an obsession with statistics… a true numbers man. He had facts and figures for everything. And sometimes if he wasn’t sure, I swear he made them up… Hey … who was going to refute him anyway? Once he announced to Rita that only 2% of all golfers who had a USGA handicap were in the single digits. He was one of them. But that wasn’t enough for him. One of his missions was to accomplish 3 things in life that were in the category of things that less than 10% of the population could actually do. So as a second goal, he became a pilot. There was still one more to go. So he learned to juggle.

That was Mark, always finding a way to set him apart from the rest of the pack.


And there were the games…Oh the many games that he would discover, invent, and pass on to others. There were too many to remember… There were things like, not necessarily in this order… liar’s poker, pigs, left right center, and perhaps his true trademark… high-low. I could probably retire today if I only had a fraction of the pot that he won from all of you that sit here in this Church today from those silly high-low games. Last week I received an email from one of our PMMI buddies after hearing of Mark’s passing. All it said was, “But who’s going to sit in the back of the bus now to take all of my money?” It was a true and sincere tribute to the man who acclimated so many into our fun group of wonderful friends.


So it was, Mark Garvey, the fun guy in the back of the bus.


When I reflect on his wonderful life, I will always picture the man with the perfect golf swing who also taught me the perfect adage in life…. a swing thought that he always lived by and one by which he taught me well…It was simple, but it says so much…”You can never get caught in the truth”…

That became my swing thought in life and I will always carry that part of him with me throughout the rest of my life.



What can I say about Mark and his partnership with the lovely Rita? When I think of great combinations, there are some things that just seem to go together… peanut butter and jelly, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, and Mark and Rita…They just go together so naturally, so beautifully… Rita, you were lucky to have him and him to have you. You will always have, as you called him, “My Garbo”.

The intense love that Mark had for his wife and his family was so obvious, right from the very first time that I met him. Ben, Jake, and Sara, you have learned so much from this wonderful man who always wanted the very best for you and let you grow up to have your own convictions, your own passions…What a role model he was.


And so, Mahk Gahvey, I keep my promise to you today as I stand before your family, friends, and business associates…

I have done what I know you would have wanted, I did not mourn, but rather I celebrated your short but wonderful life.


And keeping with that theme, I’d like to close by reciting a poem that speaks of you. When I first read it, I questioned whether it would bring true closure to this celebration of his life, but as I thought about the words… I realized that it truly describes what he would be telling us today.








I Did Not Die

Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and forever cry.
I am not there. I did not die.



And so I say to all of you today…

May Mark Garvey be in all of your hearts forever.

Be happy and be proud that you knew such a wonderful man.