About Us


Executive Management Biography

Mark Lacas
  Age 11 - 5th grade - Out of desire to secure his bedroom from little sister, Mark learns to design and build electronic circuits, comes up with a photo-electric alarm to warn when sister violates his room.

Age 14 - 8th grade - Mentored on computer logic design after school at Weslayan University, and at home in the evening, by Wayne Rosing - current Senior Vice President of Engineering - Google. With Wayne's help Mark wins 1st prize in local Science Fair with hand built circuit "Discreet Component Transistorized Adder". Wayne was one of the original core that helped build Google into what it is today. Previously Wayne was the Director of Engineering of the Apple II division of Apple Computer and the Director of Engineering of Sun Computer.

Age 16 - 10th grade - Starts first electronics business "Lacas Electronics", closes contract, develops and produces a strobe light system that velcros on to firemen's helmets so they can be found if they go down, for a fire safety business in Fort Wayne Indiana.

Age 17 - Director of Engineering - Tora Flite, Mark designs "Systems Monitor Mini-Computer" to monitor vital functions of transportation vehicles. Enters product in regional Science Fair and wins 1st place, a trip to the International Science Fair.

Age 18, 12th grade - Major winner International Science and Engineering Fair, most awards. NASA Award includes trip to watch Apollo blast off in bunker with President Ford, GM Award for excellence, American Patent Lawyers Association Award, FASST Award, American Patent Association Award, American Astronautical Society Award, Dept. of Transportation Award, Army Award. . .18 awards total, the most ever won by a contestant.

Age 19 - Director of Engineering - Dexter Axle, Designs mobile computer for monitoring and measuring road test data for axle and brake development. Dexter becomes the leading supplier of axles and brakes to the mobile home industry with their revolutionary electric brakes.

Age 20 - Purdue University, Electrical Engineering

Age 22 - Leaves Purdue to pursue an Engineering position at CTS Microelectronics, helps bring to market first micro-computer based heart pacemaker, designs high reliability hybrid electronic parts for the Space Shuttle and other critical applications, manages 18 lines of product development and manufacturing.

Age 24 - Hired away from CTS and promoted by Northrop Corporation to Senior Engineer, Mark develops micro-computer based flight and maintenance training simulators. Designs and develops F20 Training Flight Simulator.

Age 26 - Leaves Northrop to found his second successful company, FFT, Designs and produces the first computer aided test (CAT) system for the new Apple II computer. Develops under contract a 64 point Nuclear Reactor Temperature Monitoring System for the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier.

Age 29 - Designs and develops under contract, the worlds fastest microcomputer. 80 times faster than the VAX 11/780 and 300 times faster than the IBM AT. This achievement garnered Mark an induction into the Hackers Conference, an "invitation only" organization that includes many of the founders of the Personal Computer revolution. Marks's achievements also garnered an invitation to the Asilomar Micro-Computer Workship, another such organization.

Anecdote: One year at the Asilomar Conference Mark takes 3 friends out on a drive to check out the new (at the time) GPS navigation system in his car. The friends were the designer of the Pentium microprocesser, the designer of the competing PowerPC microprocesser and Apple's chief scientist. If the car had gone over a cliff, the computer industry would have suffered a major setback. As it happened they all returned safely and disassembled the system to see how it was put together.

Age 28 - Develops and markets a high speed Local Area Network (pre Ethernet) and communications applications for PC based computers. Mark's LAN products became the standard for use by the US Marine Corps for field deployment around the world.

Age 33 - Founds Lone Wolf with partners David Warman and Dave Duran - Develops a high speed fiber optic network system for music, MediaLink. Lone Wolf's products are used in studios and on tour by U2, Herbie Hancock, INXS, Grateful Dead, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Jimmy Buffet, Brooks and Dunn, Simple Minds, Tina Turner and many other recording artists.

Age 36 - Files for patent on Isochronous Multimeda LAN Protocol - MediaLink

Age 37 - Develops the MicroLAN and VNOS system for stadium and large venue sound system control. Mark and Dave's custom chip is licensed by and designed into pro audio gear from nearly 80 different manufacturers such as, JBL, Altec Lansing, Yamaha, Panasonic, Carver, Bose, EAW, Comminity, Rane, QSC, Klark Teknik, UREI, Midas and others.

With the inclusion of the MediaLink chip in many of the Pro Audio industries' products, Lone Wolf based systems are installed worldwide to control the sound systems of major venues including, The Huston Astrodome, Grand Ole Opry, Nebraska Cornhusker Stadium, Mormon Tabernacle, Vancouver's GM Place and Portland's Rose Garden.

With this success, Lone Wolf and Mark enjoy widespread media coverage including interviews in Men's Vogue, Geo Magazine, CNN, Mix Magazine and many others.

Feature articles with cover mention, appear in Men's Journal, Home Theatre Technology, Audio Video Interiors and others. Full cover and article in German Keyboard Magazine.

Mark gives Paul Allen co-founder of Microsoft, a demo of the VNOS system at a lunch date and Paul invests $5 million in Lone Wolf to help grow the company, Paul will invest over $17 million. The only other person I know of who Paul has backed after a personal demo was Bert Rutan. Bert and Paul just successfully won the $10 million dollar X-prize for privately funded space travel.

Over it's lifetime VNOS has garnered nearly $40 million of private angel investment.

1995 - Mark purchases a sinking, derelict 1966 Cheoy Lee Offshore 36' sailboat and spends 3 years painstakingly rebuilding it into a gleaming teak masterpiece, better than new. New hull, teak decks, teak cabin house, wiring, plumbing, engine, maxprop and rigging. Outfits his beautiful "Flying Cloud" with the latest electronics and navigation systems and commences sailing the Puget Sound. http://loftcam.com/cheoylee.html

1997 - MediaLink Patent Granted to Mark Lacas and David Warman, more patents to follow

1998 - Lone Wolf transforms and pursues the Internet and IT markets, becomes Singlestep Technologies.

Mark is invited to speak at Stanford University about using VNOS to create the X-Internet. Video available at: http://www.loftcam.com/stanford.mov

Harking back to his roots, Mark takes on a contract from Apple Computer to create a room/media control system for Apple's 350 seat Town Hall Theatre and Keynote venue for use by Steve Jobs. Steve likes it.

Following the successful Town Hall project Apple contracts Mark to create media control systems for Apple Computer's regional sales centers and the iTunes NOC (network operations center).

Singlestep uses VNOS to develop and enterprise solution for fortune 500 companies IT infrastructure management. Customers include IBM, Mercury Interactive, Alaska Airlines and many others.

Current:

Mark develops the "Max Home" system for managing and controlling all aspects of environments ranging from homes to large automated buildings, and provides consulting in technology and lifestyle.

His vision is to unite all disparate legacy systems and transform the home and building automation industry as he did previously in the Pro Audio industry.