Company - About Mark

Company -> About Mark

Mark Le Vea is the creative force behind Xtreme Classics.

Substantial inventions and other cool projects:

Use of carbon fiber composites in the plastic injection molding process: In 1982 while at Kodak Mark came up with the idea to substitute carbon fiber parts into the plastic injection molding presses and mold bases. A mold base consists of a number of steel plates many of them weighing several hundred pounds. Strength and rigidity are needed in plastic injection molding due to the injection pressures. Large or multiple cavity mold bases can require 30 tons of pressure or more. Mold bases weighing thousands of pounds are the state of the art. Molding presses capable of these pressures are tens of thousands of pounds.; Integrating carbon fiber into the molding presses and mold bases would make the same size base or press 7 times stronger. Plus the carbon fiber has a self-lubricating quality so galling is minimized and heat transference from the hot mold cavities through the mold base to the press is less due to thermal isolation qualities of carbon fiber. Of course you don’t need mold bases and presses seven times stronger but you now can downsize these pieces and still have sufficient strength. The net gain is economies in handling and storing the lighter mold bases, use less energy through more efficient heat isolation and the overall machining ease of the composite.; The official word on his suggestion was “Too far out in the future”. Within 3 years Kodak’s competitors were using this technology and it’s still used today for the same reasons Mark suggested it in the first place.
Use of Finite Element Analysis and Computer Models to analyze Electromagnetic Interference.: In 1989 Mark revolutionized the defense electronics industry. During Mark’s first few months at his job at the U.S. Army’s Artificial Intelligence Center he was presented with what Naval Post Graduate School graduates referred to as the single largest problem facing the U.S. Armed Forces today. It seems they can’t build systems that don’t interfere with other systems. Your missile sensing equipment has to be shut off before you can use the anti-missile guidance system. The anti-missile system also requires boot up time. Seems the electromagnetic fields from each system were incompatible with the other systems. “Well I know what you can do for that” was Mark’s reply. A process called Finite Element Analysis that is being used in mechanical design could be adapted to be used as a tool to envision and study the effects of disparate systems EMI effects on each other. “Surely you have the resources to develop an element with the characteristics of your emitters”.; Nine months later Mark checked on his suggestion and was told that it was classified well over his level but since he suggested it in the first place (in a very muffled tone) “We’re doing it”; This invention spawned a multi-billion dollar industry and did more for military systems readiness during the early 1990s than any other single thing. Today it is the standard mode of design to model systems and test them for EMI using this technique. It is possible that Mark's invention was the second most important facilitator to bringing down the old Soviet Union next to Reagan's Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI) facade. The main difference is Mark's invention was real and Star Wars was a facade created to get the Soviet Union to spend itself into oblivion.
Saving a $100M S.A.I.C. Prototype: S.A.I.C. and Teledyne Brown were running a project sponsored by the U.N.'s Nuclear Disarmament Commision to monitor the earth's surface for nuclear events. First named the "Seismic Center" and then renamed "The Center for Monitoring Research" once the concept was proven and the list of monitored nuclear event related items increased. The concept is simple: gather data from seismic sensors around the world and have scientists evaluate the waves for explosions. By referencing three sensors they could vector in on the depth of the explosion so we could watch the Chinese build the hole they were going to use to test their weapon. Once it was to a certain depth we knew it would take them another week to actually test the atomic bomb.; The only problem was they built the prototye on an entirely un-scaleable infrastructure. Mark was called upon to re-architect the entire infrastructure. Computer systems were updated and the disk-less, network intensive clients got local operating systems. The network was redesigned, a modern switch installed and a tiered firewall system was put in place to handle the massive amount of data streaming in from world wide seismic sensors and all the normal day to day business activities. Within 3 years the fully scaled prototype was duplicated and fielded in Vienna, Austria.
First tiered firewall system: In 1995 while working at the Center for Monitoring Research Mark was challenged with securing a vast amount of seismic data coming into the center to monitor the Earth for Nuclear Events. Mark’s solution was to assemble the first tiered firewall system. While the data stream from seismographs streamed in through a packet filtering firewall application related firewall traffic was routed to an application layer firewall. It’s commonplace today but it was a first in 1995.
Designed next generation Internet: In 1997 invented the next Internet. No one understood. In 2006 it is being installed in Japan and coastal cities in China. Soon it will be sold to us.
First Internet based K-12th grade school: In 2001 Mark participated in the launch of the first Internet based Kindergarten through 12th grade school. If you had a computer and an Internet connection you could get a first rate education. Mark’s part was to design the infrastructure to support the on-line school. High security was necessary due to the nature of the individual states for student record requirements and also because of Chairman Bill Bennett’s high profile. Not really an invention but just a feel good job. Delivering something to the generations to come after you. It was a great job. Then the CEO made a 6 million dollar mistake and the owners required 1/3 of the workforce to be laid off. The CEO got to keep his job.
Stopping a possible National Security Disaster: In 2002 Mark found a National Security Disaster waiting to happen. Hired as an Architect by the U.S. Treasury Mark found an Oracle database with all of Treasury’s employee’s personal information unshielded from 200,000 employees. In fact 6 months before Mark got there a Customs systems person told them they were insecure and was challenged to break in. He exploited an un-patched line printer bug to dump the entire database to a local printer. The Security officer knew she had a problem but she was working at the manager level and had no idea how to implement a security system down at the wire level. Mark proposed a $350K solution for both the development site and the production site and was able to secure the sensitive data from every one except those who absolutely need to see it. For stopping this possible disaster Mark was threatened with termination. Seems the contractor made 10% on hardware and 50% on programmers and had set aside that money for programmers. Mark had cut into their profits by $140K and was assigned scapegoat status and promptly dismissed. This is a learning experience.
Designed the “Atomic Bomb Against Terrorism”: In the month following the 9/11 disasters Mark conceived a system that could fairly be described as an “Atomic Bomb Against Terrorism”. The invention brings together elements of disparate and arcane systems and relies on an A.I. inference engine for output. Four years later our “smart guys” still haven’t come up with anything that comes close to being this powerful. An Army Intel specialist gave it a 100% on peer review and a local data warehousing guru agreed if Mark was able to get 12 wise people in a room at the same time they would all agree it was a great idea. Yet letters to his congressman and every US senator got no reaction. Interviews at Mitre and other “cutting edge” homeland security corporations also had no reaction.; One might start to assume the large contractors whom advise the government are not really looking to fix the problem. They’re making way to much money from the problem.
Racing Car and Race Car Systems Design: During Mark’s time at college while studying to be a mechanical engineer he paid the bills by building racing car engines at a local shop. As soon as Mark got into the strength of materials and physics part of the curriculum he began designing and fabricating race car parts on campus. Once he graduated he continued to design racing related items and even designed a special purpose car from the ground up for Volunteer Fireman’s Competition. (LM-1 pics) Constantly involved in racing in one form or another Mark migrated to Northern Virginia and found a racing engineer mentor who finally was dragged to Detroit for causing Corvette Racing to win LeMans. C’est la Vie.; On his own again Mark found a reproduction of an original 1960s race car. Figuring the handling should still be exquisite as it was in the 60s why not upgrade the car to current computer controlled technology. Build a 600 horsepower pussy cat. Once he realized the pussy cat would be victim of the original aerodynamics gremlins Mark used current technology to design aerodynamic devices and attached them to the car. Presently the car is being instrumented for a high speed run at Maxton N.C. to judge how well the new aero attachments function. Mark is hoping for aerodynamic stability and to be able to destroy the old GT40 speed barriers. More on this after the run in September. Life begins at 200.
Hydrogen Fueled Internal Combustion Engine: Mark has begun research and development of hydrogen fueled internal combustion engines. Initially the application will be electrical power generation. Can't say much more presently.
Land Speed Record: 2006 - While doing aerodymic testing on the GT40 mods we not only got good aero numbers relating to downforce, we managed to pick up a land speed record for the class at Maxton AFB in North Carolina.
IED issue in Iraq solved: 2006 - Solved the IED issue in Iraq. No one understands. Seven more soldiers die every day. I have talked to Navy officers in charge of IED projects, primary contractors, senators looking to get a sound bite but wishing to take no action on a solution, all the way to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
This solution describes the next generation on personal communication that we could sell to the world but no one understands this either.