Mark Rebagliati was born in Lytton, British Columbia and graduated from the Haileybury School of Mines in 1966 before earning a degree in geological engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1969. 

After working for major mining companies, he established his own consulting firm and formed an alliance with Vancouver-based Hunter Dickinson in 1986. He was on or lead teams that discovered six deposits that attained production, the discovery of the giant Pebble East porphyry deposit in Alaska and two porphyry deposits in Tibet China. 

These and other accomplishments led to many industry honours, notably the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award in 2007, the Society of Mining and Metallurgy Robert M. Dreyer Award in 2008, and his induction into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 2014.