Meet Mark Wallen | Scientist & Chef

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Wallen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Starting my own business was largely done with regard to my repetitive stress injury I received about three years ago. Sadly, attempts at fixing this has failed, so I’ve been put through the ringer of workers compensation all the way through to social security disability. The arduous journey to SSI taught me that I would never be safe in Americas hole-filled social safety net. The thought of needing to get back to work came from the fact that the social security system does not pay what is necessary to live a dignified life. Also, importantly, Medicare/Medicaid does not cover everyone’s vital medications, nor mine. The question I had then was, how would I go about getting back to work despite severe limitations? After racking my brain and web, I had no reasonable hope of obtaining a job that lacked typing, pipetting, or hand repetition. The only way I imagined working again was to be my own boss with a novel, value generating product. I also believed it was necessary to utilize the expertise I possessed already and so I picked an adjacent field to biochemistry that I believe would fit better, food science. This industry has a low entry requirement and would allow me to change recipe so that it would specifically fit with me. Further focusing my thought process, I picked of coffee and tea as my focus. I imagined this was something I could endure doing for long enough until I could hire people. After some brainstorming and research, it had what I believed to be the biggest sleeping technological novelty, ultrasonic extraction. I had previously used this technique in my biotechnology days to purify protein, and there was already a modest amount of research on the topic, despite no realized commercial use.
Moving forward through the ups and downs of having a business, my main motivating thought has always been that I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Going to UC Davis was where the knowledge base for my company was first formed. From UC Davis’s focus on agriculture to the food science students I shared my classes with, the challenge of how to make food better was a common one. This is where I first had the important challenge of finding out how little I knew and how important it was to, deep down, feel okay with being wrong or not knowing.

From there, I ended up in San Diego at the Scripps Research Institute to do my PhD in biology. Unfortunately, I had to drop out with a master’s many years into my studies. Some of the blame lies with me as a still-learning scientist, struggling to make my projects work. To pile onto this, my professor died, I became ill, and a disruptive new technology in the field emerged. However, from this there was a huge number of hard and soft skills that I learned through my failures which I believe are critical to my success till this day.

My next step after recovering from illness #1 was to find a job. I found one in a small biotechnology working on sequencing technology which provided me with the space to succeed with what I had acquired through graduate school. My work involved improving the protein machinery that we used to sequence DNA. Sadly, a particular combination of repetitive stress led to illness #2, neuropathy, that I wasn’t able to fix. My career goals moving forward were to find some place for myself that fits and isn’t sitting on social security doing nothing with not enough resources. Not seeing any traditional job that fit, I started my company. For the two years following years, I have been wrestling with this technology and the frustrating absence of state food health officials. For the last year I have been dealing with costumer feedback and gradually improving my product.

If there’s one thing I’d want people to take away from my story is that it is not a good story. The life I’m living now is not a success story of a disabled person finding their way. It is an agonizingly painful and infuriating tale that should never happen to anyone. If I had a livable situation as a disabled person I could provide more benefit than I am now to society with much less personal discomfort and pain.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Daytime adventure would be the seals and sea lions of La Jolla. They are an amazing sight to see, especially pupping season at a respectful distance.

Food would be a combination of Convoy St., Mexican eateries, and North Park. Convoy Street is a culinary delight. Mexican food here is astoundingly good compared to most other places. North Park almost has too many solid restaurant choices.

Night time the music scene is still alive around downtown despite the pandemic.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
In all, honesty I would be destitute and have already failed in my business without the continued support of my parents and fiancé. I realize that I am very lucky to have people who can afford giving such support. I would love them to get some credit for believing in my vision for a sustainable, and hopefully successful, life. Thanks Maya and Tom & Carol.

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Image Credits
Trea Patterson