About Mark Middleton - Technical Director in Portland, Oregon

I AM MARK MIDDLETON

I was born in Southern California and have mainly lived on the west coast in Northern San Diego, Los Angeles, Bay Area, Reno, Bremerton and Portland Oregon.

After high school, I joined the Navy and spent 6 years as an Electronic Technician and Nuclear Reactor Operator aboard the USS Parche (SSN 683). I quickly advanced to the rank of Petty Officer First Class (E6), and helped define and manage the training program aboard our submarine.

Upon my completion of military service, I moved to the Portland Oregon metro area and worked in the silicon manufacturing industry for 3 years as a maintenance technician for Epitaxial Deposition reactors at Shin Etsu – Handotai, a provider of silicon to the chip makers of the world including Intel, AMD and others.

In 1996, I built my first website and ventured in to online 3D modeling using the (now defunct) technology VRML. I started my first company, “Tour My Home” as an immersive shopping experience for the Real Estate community. I had some small successes, but I was a bit too early and the Realty market wasn’t quite ready to make make such a huge shift.

in 2000, I joined Portland’s preeminent natural food marketing agency, Koopman Ostbo Integrated Marketing in 2000. At KO I helped grow and manage the team of website designers and developers who built innovative and beautiful systems for Hanson’s Beverages, Kettle Foods, Kroger Foods and others.

I started my own agency “Whirled Web” in 2002, and for the next 7 years built some interesting and cutting edge applications for many of the best companies around including MTV, Capital Records, Sony BMG, Nike, Volcom and Home Depot.

After Whirled Web, I worked for several years in a series of startups that never really found their footing. I managed the technology for the humanitarian aid organization “HUB” and later was the CTO for Trusted Team, later purchased by Refer.com. During this period, my partner, Nico, and I moved to Italy and lived in the northern town of Reggio Emilia with our pug, Isabelle. Our Italian isn’t awesome, but the food was amazing and we made some of the best friends we’ve ever had.

In 2005, I received a match from a local Portland Metro Area dating site from a man who I would fall in love with, Nicholas Beatty. During our first phone call, I was talking with Nick while a thunderstorm was rumbling outside. In the middle of a sentence a huge bolt of lightening struck just outside my window – “Holy Crap!”, I exclaimed. Nick responded, “You heard that too? That was right outside my apartment”. Nick’s apartment turned out to be about 200 ft from my office and I poked my head out the window and waved at him. We’ve now been together almost 15 years, and we were married in Virginia City, NV in 2018.

After returning to the USA, I joined a little startup web agency “GRAYBOX” when we only had a couple of people in the company. As Technical Director, I helped grow and manage the Tech Team over the next 5 years until we reached almost 50 on staff. We were able to design and engineer some of the most interesting ecommerce and website projects in the area. As a senior developer and director, I was a mentor junior developers and built the team to be a fairly well oiled machine working for clients of a wide diversity of industries. We worked with everyone from the Belly Dancing Instructional community to the leaders of tech at Mentor Graphics and everyone in between.

My buddy, Todd Werkhoven (who I met at Koopman Ostbo back in 2000) and I started the podcast “The Mark and Toddcast” with ongoing dialogs about Science and things going on around Portland Oregon. One of our first shows featured Brian “The Unipiper” Kidd who we have become good friends with. The Unipiper (voted “Portland’s Best Local Celebrity” 4 years in a row) is a regular contributor to the Mark and Toddcast, and has joined us for the featured Podcast “Portland at the Movies” where we review movies filmed in and around Portland Oregon.

In 2017, I started working with Hoopla Global and joined as the CTO. Hoopla Global works with food and healthy brands in the United States to sell their products into China. I designed and engineered a system we now refer to as Hooplagistics, a platform for managing the shipping, inventory and sales of products from any source to any destination.

I continue to grow, discover, learn and invent – it’s been an interesting journey already, and I’m just getting started!

Sol Crawford

Tāwhiri

Head of Marketing and Story

Mark Middleton is a tech mensch. I had the pleasure of working with Mark on all stages of the development of our highly complex and custom e-learning site and I honestly can’t imagine having the success that we experienced without his key role in the project. Although he worked for our contracted web development company, the support Mark provided was as if we had our own CTO. With a balance of crack dev ops chops, big picture project view, positive people management skills, and creative solutions kung fu, he’s a rare find in today’s tech services landscape. If you have the good fortune of working with Mark, you’ll know why I recommend him without hesitation.

Larry Briggs

V2A Solutions

Founder

Mark is the most talented internet professional I have ever worked with. He is both a craftsman and brilliant internet strategist. Anyone lucky enough to get some of his time will quickly discover the power of his collaborative capacity and his creative problem solving mind. He is fun to work with, agile, and will always work to get it exactly right. I highly recommend Mark.

Greg Stinson

Out of Overwhelm Consulting

Founder

What can you say about Mark but what an incredible talent. As an IT person Mark has the ability to dig right down in the details as a developer and jump right back to the 10,000 foot level as an Architect. But he’s not just a technical guy. He has excellent communication skills and can relate to people at their level be it technical or non-technical. In the few monthsI’ve seen Mark in action, I have been incredibly impressed by the way he responds to pressure. Working 70+ hour weeks, he still handles issues with grace and steadiness. He has the full package and would fit great in any environment.

Brett Moore

Hello World

Developer

Mark is one of the most technically apt problem solvers I’ve had the pleasure to work with in my career. He is somewhat of a local legend here in Portland. When Mark has been hired to build a team at a company, it’s a team that a waft of talented developers want to be apart of because it’s known that you will get challenged and pushed to be your best self.

Lindsay Eng

Hoopla Global

COO

Mark is one of the smartest people I know and has the most amazing ability to make the constantly changing technology landscape accessible and effective for almost anyone and any business. When I started working with Mark I had been in the government sector for over 10 years and I think I had stalled at least 15 years in my technological understanding of what can be done – and at what cost – and timeline. It is so refreshing to work with someone who believes “it can always be done” and that thoughtfulness and best business practices should always accompany technological innovation.

Ryan Apking

Web Developer

Mark is profoundly generous with his knowledge and experience, both of which are substantial. He is a natural leader who lifts up those around him and brings people together. I worked with Mark for more than a year, during which time he mentored me in my burgeoning web development career. He brought me together with other developers, patiently explained fundamental concepts of development, and helped me contribute to some complex web projects that would have otherwise been outside of my understanding. Every company should be so lucky as to have a Mark to foster a healthy, collaborative culture and enable people to reach their full potential as individuals and team members.