John Sixx Benjamin Pack
John Sixx Benjamin Pack was always creative and enjoyed chasing his passions, especially music. He promoted his first multiple band festival in 1985 when he was only 19 years old. During his early 20’s he worked with several promoters on concerts for bands such as WASP, Night Ranger and Scorpions and other popular rock bands of the time. At the time, John also managed a handful of bands, securing opening positions in regional concerts, and produced a compilation album.
In 1986, he moved to Seattle working as a guitar technician, club DJ and eventually regional club manager for local nightclub chain, during which time, he made a move to publishing, publishing SLAM (Seattle Local Area Music), a music magazine that later became Face-to-Face magazine, a popular music, art and lifestyle magazine of Seattle. Also, publishing Scandalous, a trade magazine for the regional nightclub industry. During this time, he worked with some of the biggest names in the advertising industry including Absolut Vodka, Kenneth Cole, and Ray-Ban.
After eight years, John relocating to Fresno, California with his new daughter to be closer to his family. He became heavily involved in the field of networking and Internet, specifically related to publishing. 1998 he created and hosted IMG2, a media group with a focus on Internet radio and marketing. One of John’s first clients was a local Fox affiliate that owned both the top radio station and television station in the market. During a presentation, John impressed a radio exec so much, he was asked to host a radio program of technology. John accepted, and The Webmaster Show with John Pack was created. In 2000, after surviving Y2K on the air, The Webmaster Show was syndicated nationally, however by the end of 2001 the NASDAQ technology bubble burst, and the Webmaster Show and most of the show's Dot Com and high-tech companies went with it.
Fortunately, during the time John was hosting the Webmaster Show, he had begun publishing a local newspaper, The Fresno Weekly, which was in partnership with the same Fox affiliate, a relationship that was started with the radio. At the same time, he began publishing Ultimate Athlete, a magazine on the yet to be sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts industry, at the time called Ultimate Fighting. Ultimate Athlete magazine became John’s focus with an expansion into series of live Ultimate Athlete sporting event promotions in venues across the United States, which were produced and sold to national rental video distributors.
In 2001, John met Rachel at a restaurant and popular bar that was adjacent to a live music venue, where John was promoting a concert series for the Fresno Weekly. It was chemistry from the start. In 2003, John and Rachel were married, not weeks after John had decided to leave Ultimate Athlete magazine and instead travel the United States and produce “Bad Breed TV”, a DVD magazine on Mixed Martial Arts. The DVD series, which was sold to national retailers was produced by the two of them over the next two years. The DVD series took the two of them to gyms, arenas, swamps, and bars in 43 states and some of their exclusive footage on “Entertainment Tonight”. At the end of two years, they landed in Las Vegas.
After a year, they deciding to move back to the coast. So, they packed up and moved to Ventura California, a short distance from John’s hometown of Santa Barbara. For the following two years, John and Rachel became American Sailing Association certified so that they could charter sailboats. They enjoyed sailing so much, that they combined John’s childhood passion for surfing and their new sailing passion, and began Channel Island Adventures; a surfing charter business. During John’s mid-twenties he worked as a commercial diver, spending a lot of time around and between the Santa Barbara Channel Islands and as far south as Catalina. Their new business took surfers from around the world on multi-day trips to various surf breaks on these islands.
In 2005, John raced in the Annual Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race, which is a 125-nautical-mile International Yacht Race that is billed as the largest yacht race in the world. The experience was moving for John, but it also confirmed that he didn’t want to experience anything as grand as that again without Rachel by his side. They decided they wanted to sail around the world, so the planning began. The plan was to sail the world for 5 years, then return to Mexico to build a place a retire early, Rachel would be 36 and John would be 47. On a trip to Baja California that same year, they discovered that not only was real estate in the US booming, but Mexico was also, and that they should consider moving to Mexico sooner than later. That next month on another trip to Baja, they found a near the beach and moved.
