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Mark Brokaw Highlight
Be very intentional and very purposeful...set some goals and make promises to yourself that you will go down a certain path and then go on to the next step.
About Mark
- Born and raised in Central California.
- Always knew he wanted to go into technology, but he had no idea which field to pursue—he grew up as a gamer and used to practice programming on his old Texas Instruments calculator.
- Attended Cuesta College, a community college near San Luis Obispo, CA, that has the reputation of being a “feeder school” for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he later earned a degree in mathematics.
- Says he used his experiences at community college to save on tuition costs and explore different areas of interest within the world of technology.
- He transferred into Cal Poly as a computer science major specializing in databases during the “dot-com bubble” of the late ’90s and early ’00s—says it was an exciting time to be in computer science.
- At the time, there weren’t many tech opportunities in Central California—admits he faced the tough decision of either leaving his home or switching majors to pursue new opportunities in the area.
- While at Cal Poly, he learned of a small software startup called MINDBODY that would allow him to stay on the Central Coast and pursue his passion—he has been working there ever since.
- He now oversees the data science teams at MINDBODY, analyzing user data in order to better serve the customers and businesses that use their product.