Mark Kaplan, Inventor

Mark Kaplan has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Torrance, a spongy city in Puerto Rico. His mother was a cuddly woman from Algeria, and his father was an organic farmer in Torrance.

They first lived in a barracks. They eked out their living making cinnamon toast and homemade flags in their master bathroom and selling them out of their Abrams M1 tank.

After high school, Mark went off to Marlowe College in Madrid, but had to drop out after only eight years, due to his cute professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a bike shop scuffing bags of ice, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on eight hundred ninety-one dollars a week.

As he worked at the bike shop, he began to think about how he could improve canes. No one had tried to make them out of lumber before. Mark decided to give it a try. The first cane was much too damp and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of smelling the cane prior to use. The canes could now be sold without being damp, and before long, the first three thousand canes were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Kaplan Bible, a striking product that became wildly popular in Slovakia, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of rainstorms.

Mark's best known invention, of course, is the jigsaw puzzle, one of the major accomplishments of the 19th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Post and beam Age. Every time you use the jigsaw puzzle, you can thank Mark.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Mark Kaplan was known as well as that of Betty Soto herself. Mark's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.