Mark Hainds is a leading expert on artificial regeneration of longleaf pine, having worked two decades as the Research Coordinator for The Longleaf Alliance (LLA) and as a Research Associate with Auburn University (AU). He resigned these dual positions in Nov, 2014, to walk the Texas-Mexico Border, a trek he finished seven weeks later, on December 21st, 2014. "Border Walk", his nonfiction account of the trek, was published in 2018. The walk was also featured in a full-length film on PBS titled "La Frontera." On the two year anniversary of finishing the eastern half of the US-Mexico Border, Mark returned to El Paso, Texas and walked west through New Mexico, Arizona, and California. On November 24, 2017, Mark became the first person in history to have walked the entire US-Mexico border.