John Laurance Sparks 
Jack Sparks, born in Cambridge MA, moved to California in 1957.
In the early sixties Jack was a jet aircraft mechanic in the air
force. He continued his career working for Dodge dealerships on
the East and West Coast. By the early seventies Jack started a
small co-op shop that lasted until Oct. 31 1973. That night, there
was a break in at the shop. Everything was stolen, including Jack's
tools and equipment (even his eight-track player and tapes).
During that difficult time in his life Jack met his wife Chrys. It took them three years to pay off the debt of the old shop, and turn his downhill spiral into an up hill swing. On February 14th, 1976, Jack and Chrys started DMV Clinic in a barn in their back yard. Jack and Chrys married April 4th 1977. In early 1978 they leased a three-stall shop and opened the doors with only $750 in the bank.
They have since grown into a six bay shop. They have won 28 best of Santa Cruz awards from a local papers reader's poll awards. DMV Clinic was the first shop in the county of Santa Cruz, (and one of only 154 in the state) to be rated worthy of the ASE Blue Shield of Excellence.
Jack's spent two years after his return from Nepal founding Sangralaya
Gallery. A Fair Trade outlet for the Newari artisans of Nepal,
Jack worked to support the non-profit called "Women's Prosperous
Society." If you ask him Jack will share the videos and photographs
of his trip. He also still has available a wide selection of handicrafts
like lost wax cast statues, singing bowls, prayer items, tea and
incense.
Jack's hobbies include photography and videography. He can’t remember ever having lived in a home without a dark room. His father had always been doing amateur photography and always had cameras around. He never gave it a lot of thought until he left home. That’s when he found out houses didn’t come with darkrooms. He has shot thousands of feet of 35-mm black and white and hundreds of slides both above and under water. He spent a year and a half sneaking into the classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and using their dark rooms for all of his color work. He got his first under water video camera in the late eighties and now has some of the most sophisticated prosumer camera equipment available.
Jack and his wife Chrys still reside in California. He has three
daughters and one son ranging from 30 years to 37 years old, and
seven grand children. For the past fourteen years, Jack as been
contributing to the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. He has been
assigned two little brothers in a three year time frame and has
been a Santa Claus for the past nine years.
Diploma of Automobile Engineering from the National
Institute of Technology and Management, New Delhi,India and has
specialized training in Maruti-Suzuki vehicles from the Maruti-Suzuki
Factory Regional Training Centre, Harayana, India.