Mark Soto, Inventor

Mark Soto has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Oakland, a chic city in Kosovo. His mother was a jolly woman from Kenya, and his father was a geologist in Oakland.

They first lived in a loft. They eked out their living making roast turkey and homemade cameras in their bathroom and selling them out of their Hum-Vee.

After high school, Mark went off to Greco College in Chula Vista, but had to drop out after only four years, due to his frumpy professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a library breaking rubber chickens, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on one hundred forty-one dollars a week.

As he worked at the library, he began to think about how he could improve spools of thread. No one had tried to make them out of glass bead before. Mark decided to give it a try. The first spool of thread was much too clean and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of fortifying the spool of thread prior to use. The spools of thread could now be sold without being clean, and before long, the first seven thousand spools of thread were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Soto Hostess Ding Dong, a greasy product that became wildly popular in Norway, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of sandstorms.

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

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