Mark Skeen is the co-founder and VP of Life Safety & Compliance for Qolsys, a Silicon Valley-based technology startup. Standing for “Quality of Life Systems,” Qolsys is a home security, home automation and life safety device company, who recently earned a substantial strategic investment from Tyco International (NYSE: TYC), a $10B security giant.

With a fervent passion for using technology to improve safety and save lives, Mr. Skeen brings decades of experience and expertise to an industry that has been sluggish to innovate. While the typical home security system still uses a 9-key control panel and a land line to make outbound calls to monitoring stations, the Qolsys home security system integrates an Android OS touchscreen control center, wireless sensors (including smoke, CO & CO2 detectors) and cameras with z-wave radio technology, mobile monitoring and control, and over one hundred additional home automation devices.

Responsible for ensuring the safety and reliability of the devices themselves, Mark Skeen leads the Life Safety & Compliance unit of Qolsys. With regulatory bodies including the FCC and UL, his unit works to test and certify every product before going to market. Mr. Skeen’s role also involves supply chain and product management, and he recently led the development of the IQ2, a secondary control center tablet, that saw immediate success and market demand.

An astute businessman and investor, Mark Skeen’s past credentials include managing an organization’s assets from $900M to over $2.7B, making it the top-performing fund in its category. Mr. Skeen and a partner recently initiated a new venture, Sunstar Capital, which will deal primarily in commercial real estate acquisitions and holdings in the western U.S.

Mark Skeen and his wife, Loren, currently reside in San Jose, CA.