Marty Lagina

Marty Lagina is famous for his reality television series called The Curse of Oak Island which airs on the History Channel.

Background

Marty was born in the city of Kingsford in the state of Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. He started out his career path as an engineer and has been involved in the energy business for many years. He has kept some of his personal details away from the public such as his date of public and early education.

Marty Lagina studied law but in 1979, when he was still a law student, he decided to shift careers and work as a petroleum engineer for different local companies. After finishing college, he founded Terra Energy Limited. The company was developing shale gas resource in Michigan and it developed to become the largest shale gas well operator. He sold the company in 1995 to CMS. He is a member of State Bar of Michigan and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Reality TV Star

When it comes to his TV career, he rose to fame with his reality television series called The Curse of Oak Island. He appeared on the program together with Rick Lagina, his brother. They wanted to know how to solve the mystery of Oak Island through the use of sophisticated technology and the assistance of global experts.

The brothers, Rick and Marty were trying to get to the artifacts that contained treasure. The hidden secrets were said to have been buried on the island. The history behind the island was as interesting as the hidden treasure. The brothers made it their mission to solve the mystery of the island. The two got interested in going to the island to do their research after reading an article on the Restall family’s work on the island which was published in Reader’s Digest Magazine.

In an interview with My North, Marty explained the intrigue of the island to people who haven’t seen his History Channel television show, ”Well, my older brother, Rick, read an article in Reader’s Digest in 1965. We always read Reader’s Digest and the article was about Oak Island. It explained the Money Pit’s wood timbers, and the booby traps, and the treasure that nobody knew anything about. Rick became really fascinated by it. I was the younger brother and I probably didn’t even read the article but he comes and tells me, “Hey, look at this! This is really cool!” So he gets me really interested because, well, I’m the younger brother. Sometime later, the Wall Street Journal ran two front-page articles one by a writer named D’Arcy O’Connor. My dad used to read the Wall Street Journal, so he showed it to Rick and me. That only fed the fire.”

To keep viewers entertained, the show has omitted the backstory of how Marty bought a piece of the island. When asked about any possible obstacles he ran into when he decided to purchase the property, he said “It started when I was in Florida. I picked up a magazine called Islands Magazine, which had a bunch of islands for sale in the back, and Oak Island was for sale. So I called Rick and told him. When I called about the island, it turned out that it wasn’t for sale. Somebody had jumped the gun. The agent said that he had a listing from David Tobias. David owned most of the island with his partner Dan Blankenship but he didn’t”

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After getting controlled interest of Oak Island Tours, Prometheus Entertainment approached them and this is how the reality show was born. They were working in the collaboration with Dave’s and Dan Blankenship who live at the island while looking for the hidden treasure.

Winery Venture

Marty Lagina family also has ties with Italy, in their wine growing region. He is involved in making class red wines from Villa Mari in Michigan. Villa Mari is known to promote its Italian ancestry. Many decisions that have to be made at Villa Mari are usually made by Marty.

Marty states that at his winery, they are trying to push the envelope. They want to make world-class red wine in Michigan and are using advanced techniques to produce their wine. Many of their vines are planted under tunnel greenhouses. The concept with reds is to extend the growing season. They are on the same latitude as Northern Italy and Southern France, so they get the same amount of sunlight as those regions. They don’t have the heat, since they aren’t on the Mediterranean but the tunnels duplicate the extra warmth.

Reds grow the best when the days are warm and the nights are cold which gives an advantage to his winery. Those regions in Europe are pretty warm both day and night. But at Marty’s place, the tunnels make the vines warm during the day, yet that heat dissipates during the night when the temperature drops.

Row 7 was their first vineyard. Over a decade ago, they planned to plant just 3 acres of vines, which comes out to being about 3000 individual plants for the whole plot. When the vines arrived, they were dormant and they had to put them in water to activate them. They have two or three days to plant them once they’ve been placed in the water. To plant them, they needed to use a post-hole digger to go deep enough into the dirt, and all the digging was done by hand. They are into their wines as much as their treasure hunting.

Personal Life

Even though he has been successful in the media world, the information about his personal life is not available to the public. There is no information about his parents or his immediate family other than his brother, Rick.

Because of his expertise in winemaking and his appearance on his reality television show, he has been able to make 2 million dollars to add to his net worth. He is an active person on social media where he regularly interacts with fans of his show.

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