Mark K. Allen was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA and has been a Software Engineer since the early 1990s. He has made the transition into a working Software Systems Architect. During the course of his career, Mark has worked for or served as a consultant with such companies as: Sears Credit, McCormick-Schilling, Fort-James Paper Mills, Hewlett-Packard, The State of Oregon, Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU), The State of Washington, U.S. Department of Energy, and Intel Mark is a US Navy Veteran who served in the Persian Gulf. He is also a graduate of the former, National Radio Institute (NRI) Technical School (previously a division of McGraw Hill) Washington, D.C. His courses of study included Electronic Music Technology and Computer Science. As an entrepreneur, Mark founded three companies: Powercoat Records, Powercoat Music, and Real Enhanced Decision Technology, LLC.