Alumni Spotlight

Mark St. Peter, ‘81 CEO and Managing Director, Computing Source, a full service digital evidence solution for law firms and legal professionals

A school closure.

A dropped pencil. A carjacking. And cancer.

For Mark St. Peter, ‘81, his path to CEO of a major company has had some unusual twists and turns.

As a high school student, he thought he’d like to be a pediatric surgeon. One of his five younger sisters was born with a life-threatening condition, and a surgeon saved her life. Mark said, “I thought that was pretty cool. You could help someone out at a young age, someone with their whole life ahead of them.

“Br. Carl Malacalza really stood out. Right away he let me work on the school computer. I wrote some of the software DLS used for scheduling and grading. “I learned most of what I know about computers back in high school. How computers work. We had cassette tapes. I remember when we got the floppy drive. That was a big old deal.”

Detour to Mack Avenue

But a call in 1981 to Br. Carl Malacalza, who was teaching Computer Programming at DLS, from Joseph Versical, DLS ‘38, who owned an insurance agency, led Mark on an unexpected detour. Versical wanted to hire a student to write a software program to help his Grosse Pointe Woods agency figure out the best insurance policy rates for his clients. Br. Carl sent Mark to see Joe in his Mack Ave. office.

“I knew zip about insurance, “ says Mark. “Mr. Versical showed me some printouts, and what he needed to have a program do. So I studied the printout, learned the 21

variables that go into setting a rate, and using what I had learned at DLS, wrote some software. I couldn’t wait for the end of the school day to go to his office and work on programs. When I was done, Mr. Versical offered me $2,500, plus $1,000 a year for rate changes in the program - which was an astounding amount of money. I was 17.” Mark went on that summer of 1981 to write programs for nearly 100 clients. Not bad for the kid from the 8 Mile and Gratiot area who attended Assumption Grotto, and used the profits from his 400-customer paper route to buy comic books.

“I can never repay Mr. Versical. He did so much for me and my career.”

A School Closure

Mark began college at the University of Michigan, and thanks to Advanced Placement credits in Math, Chemistry, Calculus, and French, had sophomore status. But he could have just as easily ended up at Harvard or Stanford, Northwestern or Notre Dame. He had multiple academic scholarship offers from universities all over the country. However, the University of Michigan offered undergraduate and medical school scholarships. The multiple college scholarship offers were a deja vu of what Mark faced in eighth grade: he received scholarship offers from De La Salle, as well as Austin High School and Harper Woods Notre Dame. “Austin offered me a little more, so I took that scholarship,” says Mark. But Austin closed at the end of his freshmen year, and he found himself meeting with then-DLS Principal Br. Jerome Stevens, and asking for the scholarship DLS had offered him

Mark St. Peter

a year earlier. “After a lot of pleading, Br. Jerome let me have my scholarship. My dad was a cop, I had five younger sisters, and I needed that scholarship. My years at DLS mean the world to me. I will always be grateful that Br. Jerome saw something in me.” At DLS, Mark was an “A” student, and is still proud of the Math Medal he received at graduation from the late Tony DeSantis.

At Michigan, Mark set up his schedule with no classes on Wednesdays, so he could meet with clients, deliver software and pick up checks. His customers were all over Michigan, including the Upper Peninsula, as well as in Ohio. He was driving all those miles. Every Wednesday.

A Dropped Pencil

One day, in an organic chemistry class, still on the pre-med path, Mark was copying a complicated formula from the board, and dropped his pencil. He bent over to pick up the pencil, and looked up to see the professor erasing the board. “I leaned over and asked the student next to me if I could copy her notes. She moved away. That was it. I just snapped. I stood up, walked out of the room, and decided I was done. I was dropping out of college.” At 19, he incorporated and created his first company, Alpha Centauri Development Corporation. Mark’s business continued to grow, as he acquired a working knowledge of banking and payroll, writing software programs that he says are still used by some of his clients today. “Payroll is pretty basic. Gross. Withholding. Taxes. I would just study printouts, ask a lot of questions, and then write the software.”

A Carjacking, and Cancer

In 1985, Mark’s life took another turn. He was shot during an attempted carjacking, and “a skilled surgeon had to put me back together.” The same surgeon treated Mark in May 2001, in a surgery that had a 30% survival rate. He had been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1996, and went through over a year of extensive chemotherapy and radiation. In 2001, the cancer returned. Meanwhile, on the business side, Mark had dissolved Alpha Centauri in the late 1980’s, and created Century Computer in 1988 in downtown Detroit with a friend from Windsor.

“We saw that there was a void. All these companies were acquiring computers, but needed someone to do the cabling, the networking, to set up their printers, to SELL them the computers.” But when Mark had his 2001 surgery, his partner insisted they dissolve the company. “I felt awful. People lost their jobs. But I had Stage 3 cancer. I had to recover and get better.” Century Computer split into Computing Source and Computing Express; Computing Source became the professional services side, and Computing Express became the retail - computer maintenance piece of the business.

Specializing in Litigation Support

In 2004, Mark recovered data from a computer disk that proved crucial to a corporate lawsuit. He recognized that there was a definite need for specialty work in computer “spoiliation” - simply knowing how to go into a computer’s hard drive and recover data.

Mark is one of only 600 Certified Computer Examiners in the country, and is also a Certified Fraud Examiner.

“I never had accounting training, but I learned. A CPA

A courtroom with judge, jury, attorneys, and evidence displays – all made from Legos – is showcased in the lobby of Computing Source’s main office in Southfield.

Alumni Spotlight Continued

looked at work I did, and said, Yep, you understand what you’re doing.” His clients range from law firms to corporations to the U.S. District Court in Flint where he was an expert witness in a case involving FBI investigations. Mark also has an extensive collection of articles in legal publications, and has presented at the State Bar of Michigan’s “Day of Education.”

Mark’s resumé notes his mastery of a variety of computer languages, and over 80 computer forensic and e-discovery projects.

Company Growth

Computing Source has grown exponentially in the last year, from 20 employees to 133. In addition to its Southfield main office, Computing Source has offices in Detroit, Birmingham, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids. The Chicago office opened in August 2013, and Mark is looking to add offices in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. He intends to remain a “Midwestern” company, but also has a “sprinkling” of international clients. “I’ve studied the market, and my company is the ONLY one in the country providing full-service litigation support.” Experts predict that E-discovery will be a $9 billion a year industry by 2015. “There’s so much data out there now - not just in the computer, but emails, texts, stuff in the cloud. All kinds of information is flying everywhere. Attorneys need a strong ally to help manage all this information and help them in litigation. My firm assembles all this information for our legal clients, and we also have a full graphics department preparing trial boards, and other graphic displays. Most firms don’t have the people in house to do this. We provide that full support.” He’s added high tech court reporting, and will soon add document storage.

Giving Back

Mark and his company have committed to donate 1% of their revenue each month to a different charity, and have plans to split profits in February 2014 to De La Salle, Regina High School (which his sisters attended), and the University of Michigan. “I’ve always meant to go back to college,” says Mark. He has been a supporter of De La Salle for many years. “I’ve missed very few of the Christian Brothers’ Dinners. I look forward to them every year. You look around, and it’s WOW! A thousand guys there supporting De La Salle.” Mark has also set up a charitable foundation, “Kiddie Computers,” to help educate children in the use of computers. Mark envisions computer coaching sessions, and spoken with parents who love the possibility of Saturday computer camps at his offices. He is also hoping to fund a high school scholarship within the year. His Southfield office is an eclectic hodgepodge of action figures, superheroes posters, and a lego people courtroom in a display case near the front door. “I’m just a big kid. Really. This is an office, but it’s not a morgue. We try to have fun.” Although he has spent over 30 years with computers, Mark says he had never played any kind of computer game until he visited his sister and her family in Germany. “My nephew said, hey Uncle Mark, you gotta play this game. I just faked it. I did well enough that he was happy.” A big kid. Whose path twisted and turned along the way. And whose Lasallian education has made all the difference.

Computing Source is a trusted, all-in-one digital evidence solution for law firms and legal professionals based in Southeast Michigan and throughout the Midwest. www.computingsource.com