Willand's career began in 1985 with a stint with the Small Business Service Bureau where he worked as a liaison between small businesses and the U.S. Congress. During this period, he also worked part-time for the National Hockey League's Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes). In 1986 He realized a life-long ambition when he was named Assistant Director of Public Relations for the Whalers.
With the Whalers, Willand worked closely with the Hartford media, players and business community. In addition, he served as President of the Whalers Alumni program, which generated thousands of dollars for Connecticut youth hockey programs. He also penned 200 articles for GOAL magazine, the Whalers game-night program.
During Willand's six year career in Hartford, the Whalers were recognized for having the NHL's premier media guide (1987,1988, 1989) and top press box (1988, 1989, 1990). In 1989 the Whalers Booster club awarded him the "Alan Hanglesben" award for his efforts on behalf of the fans.
In 1993, he was hired by the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins to spearhead the team's pay per view cable network, PenVision. After the channel's launch, Willand was named Director of Merchandising for the Penguins seven-store retail store and catalog operation.When the Penguins sold their TV and marketing rights to Fox Sports in 1995, Willand and his staff joined the network and made a major impact on the Pittsburgh sports media scene.
While with Prime Sports and later Fox Sports, Willand created and produced the "Players' Show", a sports magazine program that served as the pre-game show for the Penguins and baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates.
In addition to television production,Willand secured lucrative marketing deals with hockey legend Mario Lemieux and produced numerous TV commercials and the Penguins official team video, "Fire on Ice." He also managed all marketing activities for Prime Sports/Fan Fair, an 84-store retail chain, once owned by Fox Sports.
In 1998 Willand returned to New England and formed Mark Willand Productions, a company specializing in video marketing.
Simultaneously, he joined the corporate headquarters of Staples, Inc as the manager of direct marketing. With Staples, Willand's specialties included loyalty programs, small business marketing, direct marketing, retail marketing and credit marketing.
In 2002, Willand took his video marketing business full-time and recently celebrated his 11th year in business. In addition to his video marketing work, he has created numerous web sites including the classic hockey web site, whahockey.tv.
