BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER
Skills to
Save
the World
Figuring out how to feed the world,
reduce poverty, and increase job
security are hot global topics. Mark
Montfort is teaching local students ways
to tackle these issues by starting with
the principles of agriculture.
ark Montfort started out at the
University of Georgia as a prepharmacy
one semester of physics classes
M
student. It took only
and sitting inside the chemistry lab from
morning ‘til dusk to decide it was not for him.
Whatever he did, it was going to be outside.
As a young boy, he worked with his uncles’
cows and greenhouses.
Although Mark played and enjoyed
sports when he was younger, he was more
interested in working when he got to high
school. His first landscaping job was cutting
lawns while still in high school. While his
friends played varsity sports, Mark was
pulling a trailer behind his truck with a
mower, a truck for which he worked and
paid. He found his rightful place on the Ag
side of campus his second semester at UGA.
His last year of college, Mark did an
internship with a national landscaping
company called Ruppert Landscape, Inc.
“Ruppert Landscape was the company that
designed and installed the landscaping for
Olympic Park,” said Mark. “I worked in
Olympic Village and Olympic Park during the
preparation and during the Olympic Games.”
88 Toombs County Magazine