Mac was born in Great Falls, Montana in 1957, the son of an Air Force pilot and local beauty queen, Janet McAndrews. After living in Greensborough, N.C. and Clark Air Field in the Philippines, his family moved to Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, TX. He was there when his dad, USAF captain John Lawrence O'Brien, was lost in combat. The family subsequently moved back to Montana, where Mac finished my schooling, attended the University of Montana, and moved to Reno, NV in December of 1980, where he's resided ever since.