Mike was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, to U.S. Military Parents.  He attended 24 schools worldwide before graduating from High School in Brewster, Washington, in 1968.

That summer he began college at BYU and took a course in BASIC using an IBM 360/50.  From that point on he quickly became what we would call a hacker.  While in college, he wrote device drivers and two operating systems, and also managed to go to school.  He also started his first programming business, IPCS, in 1970, developing a mailing list program on an NCR Century 50. Other computers he used in school included the SEL-810b, IBM 1130, IBM 370/65, IBM 650, and the IBM 1410.

After four years of College, he began teaching there and was on staff for 18 months before leaving for an engineering company that used PDP-11's in Automated Inventory Control (Robotics) applications.  He quit two years later to start Sphere Corporation in 1975.

Sphere built two personal computer models and delivered 1,300 units in its short life.  About half were sold as kits and the remainder were sold assembled.  Gordon French, the Secretary of the Homebrew Computer Club, said in a letter to Mike:

"I argue to this day that the Sphere was the first integrated PC.  Then came the SOL, THEN the Apple.  My attitude has offended Steve Jobs, who comes to a different conclusion."

Mike has a compelling story of his involvement in the development of the TRS-80, Commodore PET, and the Macintosh, as well as a claim to building and selling the first screen-based microcomputer WYSIWYG word processor, the keyboard activated reset, and numerous other "firsts".

Since Sphere, Mike has had a successful career in software development starting A-Systems, an ongoing Construction Accounting software firm, as well as his current Internet Business, Splor.com.