Mike Gaspar

"It Starts with One!"

Growing up in Chicago's inner city wasn't the most fun as gangs kept most of the kids safely tucked in their homes once the sun went down. As a kid Mike spent his time day dreaming about being a TV star or working on cars as most of the neighbors did in the alley. Computers were the last thing on his mind until sixth grade when he became the owner of a Commodore 64 computer system, complete with printer and one really, really huge disk drive. Mike was able to create several, non-mind blowing games using the Commodore 64's sprite and ASCII art capabilities. By eighth grade Mike had developed a few 'spaceship blasting enemy' games of which only the fourth one was cool.

Mike's high school didn't have a computer program so in boredom he drew wolf characters which became the root of his nickname. Between sketches he studied physics and calculus with the thought of going into Aerospace Engineering for NASA. During Mike's junior year the family's house caught fire after an arson attempt by a local street gang. The house was the sixth house on the block to be set on fire in a three year period and it provided an opportunity to start living a new life on Chicago's northwest side.

"Wolffy" went on to DePaul University where he majored in Physics and was well underway to completing his three year classroom training before going to do field work. Two weeks into his freshman year Mike discovered the world of Pinball after being tormented by a game called "Funhouse". Many boring physics and chemistry classes were secretly replaced with pinball study hall at the student union.

The coursework became more interesting when a physics and calculus course featured planetary objects and putting satellites in orbit. But then came a course in E&M. Mike realized that this level of work wasn't holding his attention. Noticing that he enjoyed generating the computerized lab reports and collecting measurements, Mike switched over to major in Computer Science. For his two years in the physics program Mike takes with him minors in both Physics and Math.

Under Professor Henry Harr, Mike quickly learned and adapted to the environment of the computer field, at least academically. Following graduation, he was hired to start in the up and coming client-server group for Delliot and Touche's, DRT Systems. To start his employment he worked on a six month contract for a downtown Chicago bank. That job was incredibly boring and Mike quickly moved on.

He ended up at a Deerfield based computer security company where he met his field mentor Dave Sowinski. Dave showed Mike how to handle the managerial politics involved in developing good software. Together the two created a data cryptography product that was (at the time) the most advanced to date. In 2000, Mike return to DePaul University to get his Masters of Science in Computer Science.

Working under Dr. Clark Elliott, Mike studied distributed technology and continued to study various topics including Business Object Architecture, server side web applications, distributed architectures, server development and distributed databases. All technologies Mike hoped could be used to implement a security services company that would rival current application development companies.

Mike graduated with his master's degree in June of 2002. Since then he has focused more on server side security and distributed data in addition while taking breaks to work with local pinball enthusiasts. When he isn't doing either of those Mike can be watching hockey, bike riding, attempting tennis, enjoying an American road trip, and at times relaxing in Orlando, FL.