January 19, 2017
MPA alumnus, Mark Holmquist ’08, is one of more than 200 worldwide employees of San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and its many sister projects. Working remotely from his home in Saint Paul, Mark serves as a tech lead in multimedia and contributes to this important open-source global community with a mission to build “a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.” One of Mark’s passions is to help newer Wikimedia programmers as they gain their footing. He’s paying it forward in honor of the people who graciously took time to help him learn the ropes when he started several years ago.
Mark, who majored in computer science at Redlands College, also took core classes in government. He credits a few of his MPA teachers for supporting his passions in technology and government—specifically, Ms. Reardon-Offerman and the Tech Center (where he tinkered with technology), and Ms. Conway. About the latter, he said, “I don’t know how you could’ve taken a class from her and not been massively inspired.”
Asked, as a Wikimedia insider, what the rest of us should explore, Mark suggested a few cool sites: Wikivoyage (a travel web site), Wikibooks (and, specifically, the cookbook section—where his big contribution was a Lefse-from-scratch recipe that includes using a heritage grill).
Mark is willing to talk to MPA community members about programming and free, open source software. He’s a great example of how being smart, motivated, and generous can be woven into a fulfilling career. Connect with him via MPA’s Office of Alumni Relations.
