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At age 15, Craig Buck became a certified scuba diver. At 18, he earned a diving instructor certification, and at 19, he sailed around the world.
Now with more than 28 years of professional travel industry experiences under his belt, Buck, 47, will become one of the first space travel agents in North America to book a passenger seat into space and successfully launch his extensive travel industry career into suborbital space.
As the owner of North Park-based Travel Masters, Buck is now among an elite group of high-end travel consultants, including two San Diego-based operations and 43 other North American travel specialists, selected to reserve seats aboard Virgin Galactic's suborbital spaceflights scheduled to explore the final frontier as early as late 2008.
"My specialty has always been hard-to-get-to and remote places," said Buck.
He has cultivated his business into creating custom travel arrangements to remote locations for entrepreneurs, land developers, celebrities and adventure travelers.
Buck's travel company is about to take off at Mach speeds from a word-of-mouth business to a World Wide Web sensation. Virgin Galactic will advertise space agents on its Web site once their training is complete.
"Up until now I have intentionally worked with an unlisted phone number and no business cards," said Buck.
"It has been all word-of-mouth and I have been able to pick and choose new clients via personal recommendations from my existing clientele."
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