Mark Bolam

by Dr. Iain Corness

Mark Bolam, the director of ‘Enlightened Planet’ is a softly spoken American who becomes very animated while talking about his enterprise, explaining that ‘enlightenment’ has several meanings, depending upon whether it is looked at from an Eastern or Western point of view. After talking with him and finding out that he has lived and worked all over planet earth, his fusion of ideas and concepts becomes much more understandable. The reverse of his business card states ‘Entertain, Energize, Enlighten’; however, when you find that he now lives in Chaiyapum, hardly the center of the universe, you sense that there is a story here worth telling.
Mark was born in New York City, “because my mother didn’t want me in Libya” heralding the start of a peripatetic journey around the world. His father was a geologist who worked for Esso (now Exxon), and Mark and his two younger sisters followed their corporate father who took them from New York to Boston, back to New York, to Singapore, to KL, to New York, to Houston Texas, to Tokyo and to Bangkok, where Bolan Senior took the post of MD for Esso Thailand.
It was also very refreshing to hear Mark say, “My father is my hero. He had a huge interest in everything, music, history, art, different cultures. He was a Renaissance Man, not the typical picture of an oil man. He was our stable force, with a love of learning which he passed on to the family.” To say that this made the Bolans an academic family is an understatement. Mark and his sisters all with at least a Masters degree in varying callings.
Mark finished his secondary schooling in Bangkok in 1978, and began studying at Rice University in Houston Texas, emerging five years later with his Masters in Chemical Engineering. With the all-round viewpoint that his father had given him, Mark did say that he also had an interest in art and music as well, even though he was now officially a chemical engineer.
During his studies, ‘programming’ was part of the curriculum, with Mark explaining that “a chemical reaction is a mathematical model.” (I’ll believe him!)
His interest in programming was in many ways his salvation (at the time). The oil industry was going through a depression in the mid 1980s, but with his programming abilities he secured employment immediately after leaving university, programming for an oil and gas consultancy firm.
After four years of this, he realized that he was more interested in programming than he was in the oil side of the business, so he moved on to start his own programming company, doing contract programming for other companies. One of these was a fledgling computer manufacturer called Compaq, with 3,000 employees. Mark was invited to join to make it 3,001 and found he had set foot in the exploding IT industry of the time. In the 11 years he was with Compaq, the employee numbers rose to 80,000 and Mark rose as well, to become the IT manager for sales, marketing and customer service for the Asia-Pacific region. He had also stepped aboard the corporate carousel like his father had many years previously, going from the US to Holland and then Singapore. However, it was the excitement and commitment that had kept him going. “At Compaq we were very passionate. We were changing the world in those days.”
His next major move was to Siebel Systems where he worked out of Sydney Australia and Singapore (again) until he was traveling around Asia like a man possessed. In any year he was spending eight months traveling between India, Korea, Hong Kong and all ports in between. The IT explosion was still going on, with Siebel Systems growing 800 percent in the five years Mark was with them.
However, the IT industry is well documented for staff burn-out. “In the IT industry, everything is in a rush and eventually flying around took its toll. I barely had enough time to call into my flat in Sydney, pick up the mail, pay the bills and I was off again.”
During this period of flying around Asia, Mark was able to indulge himself in his love of music, with Jazz and the Blues predominating. He met various artists in Asia, doing concerts for individual promoters, and the germ of an idea was forming in his mind.
His time in Singapore did have another up side too – he met his wife, a Thai girl from Chaiyapum, through a mutual friend. She was fascinated by the fact that Mark could speak some Thai (a relic from his days at the ISB in Bangkok, where he finished his schooling) and they kept in touch, eventually marrying and now proud parents of two small children.
But it was not that easy. Mark’s jet-setting was not conducive to family life, and his wife and the children went to live in Chaiyapum, while Mark tied up the odds and ends while he left the IT business. “I had accomplished what I wanted to do, and the corporate IT existence wasn’t really it.”
So two years ago he moved to Chaiyapum and Mark sat down and recharged his batteries. He looked at the music scene and saw that SE Asia was hard for the American and European artists. He suddenly realized that he knew the artists, he knew the promoters and he also knew the SE Asian area. Could he put this all together?
He decided he could, and so far it seems to be very successful, such as the Billy Cobham concerts at Silverlake Vineyard just outside Pattaya, which will then go to Singapore and KL. “I like the idea of connecting the cities in SE Asia, and making the music available to the people in these countries. If I can make it nice for the artists, it will grow. I want to open minds. It will be an enlightened planet. It all fits together!”
After an hour with Mark, I think he could be right.