Born in Virginia 1952 to a Washington correspondent of a small upstate New York newspaper, Marc Emory grew up living and breathing the Washington political scene. He used to hang around the U.S. Senate Press gallery as a child watching his father chat with people like Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javits and Everett Dirksen.

His father, Alan S. Emory, was to become president of Washington's elite journalist organization, the Gridiron Club, and Marc knew many of his acquaintances, including Helen Thomas who remains a good personal friend to this day. It was at Gridiron that Alan Emory first introduced Marc to Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Marc spent a high school year abroad in Spain in 1968-1969 during the Franco era, and got his first look at the remnants of Fascism first hand. After graduating the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, he spent the summer of 1974 in what was then West Berlin, playing folk music in what was a very active folk club scene. At one club, he met his future wife, Elisabeth, a native of the far northwestern part of Germany.

In 1975, he joined the predecessor of his current employer, Heritage Capital Corporation. As his wife did not wish to leave Germany, she said that if they were to stay together, Marc would have to move to Germany. His very flexible CEO said he should go ahead and try to establish some overseas divisions for the company, which he did, starting in 1979. He now heads heritage's offices in Germany, France; Holland and Switzerland, and now speaks German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Swedish and Dutch. This year marks his 35th year with Heritage.

In 1977, his father joined the Gridiron Club of Washington. The highlight of their year is their big dinner and show every March, where they put political satirical texts to well-known songs. Marc was infected by his father's enthusiasm for this, and Alan Emory was one of the most prolific songwriters Gridiron ever had. When Marc was invited to join the yearly Renaissance Weekend gatherings every New Year's in South Carolina in 2000, he saw they had a similar program. Starting in 2001, he became an integral part of this program. Some Gridiron members attend Renaissance Weekend, and have liked some of Marc's songs well enough to use them in the Washington Gridiron shows for which his father was so well known. Marc also participates in The Freedom Toast, a musical political satire project out of Atlanta, which has produced numerous musical satire videos that can be seen on Youtube, including the famous "Home On The Range—Bush Version," that has been seen over 300,000 times, as well as the just-completed "Talking TSA Blues HD."