SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
FIND US ON:
Bookman's Blog
My old friend, business partner, and employee passed away last week at his family's home in Missouri. I met Mark at the original Bookmans on Tucson Blvd. over 25 years ago when we were the Atari dealer. At the time, Atari was a true competitor to Apple and the Macintosh and we were one of their largest dealers. In fact, if you are ever at the Grant Road store, you can still see lots of floor outlets that were for the computer displays. Anyway, Mark bought one of our machines, the 520ST, which was a rock star of a computer with 512 megs - not gigs, but megs - of ram.... wheee. The next day he was back complaining that it didn't work, so I gave him another one, which didn't work either, and neither did the third. I tried in vain to give him his money back and he told me in no uncertain terms: "No, I want this thing. I am not going away, so why don't you pay me to fix it?" And the rest, as they say, is history, for he became our tech support for the Atari.
His job as tech support later morphed into us forming a company, Practical Solutions, which made hardware accessories for Atari. We even had a factory in Taiwan. Our first office was at Grant, in the space which later became the rare book room. The corporate offices are now in a building that I bought to house the company after we outgrew the space at Grant. Eventually Atari went down the tubes and, unfortunately, so did Practical Solutions. Although self-taught Mark was, in fact, a brilliant programmer. For example, while working on Mt. Lemmon for the U of A, he, in his spare time, rewrote the telescope tracking system. Now the telescope was finally truly capable of tracking individual stars like it should have in the first place - no one had been able to figure out how to do before.
For me his crowning glory as a programmer was our POS/POP system, a system that we use each and every day. He wrote the entire thing almost single-handedly. It's a remarkable piece of software that has been used hundreds of thousands of times, year after year, for more than a decade, with nary a hiccup. So next time you buy some cool book or sell an interesting piece of music, or whatever you do on our core piece of software, take a second to think of my old friend Mark. And how he spent a good portion of his life-force during his final years thinking of how to make it a better experience for you and for our customers. He is truly The Ghost in the Machine. Mark Sloatman was forty-nine years old, my friend and I will miss him.
May 30, 2009
One of my fondest memories of Mark was a road trip Dana, Mark and myself took to Flagstaff for the big remodel years and years ago. On the way up we hit a really bad snowstorm. It was on of those "Hope we get out of this alive" situations. We all became stronger friends after that.
At Mark's Going Away Party, Bob said something about him that has stuck with me ever since: "Mark will always be a part of Bookmans DNA." That has made me think differently about my relationship with this company and this family we call Bookmans.
May 30, 2009
Few people have left their stamp on the company more prominently than Mark. I worked with Mark for 5 years. Mark always took pride in his work and truly cared about Bookmans. His last few years were tough to watch as his physical condition continued to deteriorate. After he retired he told me he was looking forward to moving back to Missouri to be with his family, knowing that his remaining years would likely be short and tough. He's in a better place now. Thanks for all you did for Bookmans.
February 07, 2012
Just learned of Marks death, We grew up together in tucson. We had great times together we could not be seperated. together all the time. From 5th grade on through high school. Even though he transfered from the Amphi school district to Sunnyside we still hung out together every weekend. After I returned to Tucson from my military service we got together every day almost.He started his own tv repair shop. He even hired wife at the time to be his secretary. I would help him install tv antennas and repair televisions. Yea back wehen they had tubes in th tv. We took electronics together in jr high and we each built a working tv. We lost touch like alot of friends do. Life gets in the way, Family responsibility work. I am sad I had to find out this way of his death. I do not know what he died of and I would like to talk to his Mom, Peggy.
I still think of Mark and I and wonder if kids growing up these days have the fun and adventures Mark and I had back in the day.
April 04, 2012
He was my uncle :) I miss him very dearly, I'm the daughter of his sister Susan Sloatman. I miss him very dearly. Thank you so much for posting this about him. He used to show me so many cool and interesting things, he was my favorite uncle :)
Greetings from Missouri!
Post new comment
Blog Categories
Twitter Updates
Recent News
Upcoming Events
Blog Archive
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- July 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- July 2006
- May 2006
- March 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
May 26, 2009
I've just learned of Mark's passing a few days ago while visiting the Grant Road store and wanted to comment.
I worked with Mark back in the Atari/Practical Solution days. It was a fun but busy time with Mark and the team he assembled. After Atari went South, I transitioned into the Bookman's warehouse and Mark became the I.T. guy for Bookman's. I remember him pouring long hours into the creation and testing of the Point-of-sale system, making it bulletproof as well as functional. The system works amazingly well and is the main reason that the checkout lines don't back up out the door during busy times. Mark was also instrumental in creating and maintaining the computer infrastructure throughout the company.
I fondly remember the time with Mark at Bookman's & Practical Solutions and am saddened that he has left so soon.
-William (formerly) from the warehouse