Mark Heinz started playing drums in 1980 and dialing into bulletin board systems on a 300-baud modem around the same time. Two obsessions, same era: rhythm and terminals.
He grew up on BASIC, BBS culture, and drum rudiments. By the time the web arrived, he'd already spent years in front of both kinds of kit. He co-founded Fragile Porcelain Mice in 1991, a rock band out of St. Louis, and toured and recorded with them for twenty-five years. Somewhere in the middle he taught himself HTML because fans kept building the band's website and it never looked right. That turned into a production company — audio, video, web, design — that he ran for over a decade.
After twenty-five years he stepped away from the band and closed up the production company. FPM's still at it. He went back to work at forty-five. First job back was on a factory line. Thirteen years of running your own company have a way of showing, though. He kept building things — websites, tools, systems — because that's what he does. The specific work changes; the impulse to make something useful doesn't.
He's up by 3:30 most mornings. Prayer, coffee, then on with the day. He still plays drums on Sundays at church. He lives in southern Illinois with his wife Mia and two of their sons.