About

I grew up in the Minneapolis, MN area loving the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre, gaming, and technology! After high school, I attended the University of MN for a year and started computer science classes. However, I realized that the theoretical analysis of computer software was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to work in the realm of making software that used technologies that I was interested in. This lead me to obtain a degree from Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. I attended their accelerated Associate’s degree program in Game Design and Development (2-year degree in 15 months). The workload was programming-focused and fast paced. I learned a lot about software engineering. C++ programming, data structures, and graphics programming were a lot more interesting when it related to the work I was interested in doing. After various solo and team school projects, I was one of the less than a half dozen students (starting with about 30) who made it through every class without being held back. The workload and the stress came at a cost. When I was done, I returned home to Minnesota. There weren’t a lot of job opportunities locally and I was a little burned out.

I did some small projects on the side, and worked various jobs. Eventually, I found a position at Target Corporation. At Target, I worked 1st-level tech support. There I learned the importance of being an advocate for the user which I still am today. I eventually got the itch to program again. However, there wasn’t an opening for me at the time and I wasn’t sure that Target would be the best fit for me. I decided to work on a side project in my spare time for iPhone. I spent many hours learning Objective-C and the basics of the newly released iPhone SDK to release the Game Buddy iPhone app on the App Store. While it wasn’t a smashing success, I did learn a lot. I also knew I could use it as a stepping stone to reach higher. I started looking for some local employment opportunities.

That lead me to find a local company Zivix LLC. This was a brand-new start up looking to release a music creation software called JamParty. The software was meant to give people another use for the popular Guitar Hero/Rock Band controllers and give them the ability to create music. It was a great opportunity and I jumped at the chance to get some professional experience under my belt. I worked in the Gamebryo C++ game engine, but most of the time I was working in the Scaleform/Flash engine for the UI. I worked with a Flash artist to help develop the menu and 2D UI system. After a year or so of work, we released JamParty: Remixed.

When I learned that Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) was hiring an application developer, I knew I wanted to apply. With some professional software development experience under my belt and my enjoyment of board gaming, I felt I was a good fit for the job. I applied and was hired on in their fledgling software/interactive department. When I first started, I immediately started learning more about the Unity3D engine and UI plugins available. I used these plugins to finish up a prototype that had been started called Hey, That’s My Fish. It was completed in a couple months after I started. We then started work on the next project, a conversion of the dice game Elder Sign. I worked with the same small group of developers to try to covert this board game into an engaging digital application that could be enjoyed on phones/tablets. After much struggle and extremely ambitious deadlines we squeezed out Elder Sign: Omens. It was released with great success on both iOS and Android. This was my first successful software project. Over the next year I developed expansions for Elder Sign and helped create the Star Wars: Dice application.

We knew that the software team needed to grow if we were going to take on more ambitious projects. I assisted with the hiring process of a new programmer. I worked with this programmer to complete the third Elder Sign expansion. After switching between a couple different projects, we decided on making a digital conversion of the BattleLore: Second Edition board game. This was the most complex board game project yet. We ran through various prototype phases for 6 months or so. Finally, we knew we needed to get more help if we wanted to finish the project in the timeframe needed. We hired a junior programmer and an environment artist. Towards the end of development, I also split off from BattleLore to implement the XCOM: The Board Game app which was relatively quick reusing all of the knowledge I had gained of Unity and NGUI thus far.

Even factoring in all the amazing experiences at FFG, I became eager to look for the next thing. Which lead me to apply to Obsidian Entertainment. It was a much larger company working on much larger projects. I learned to work in a designer-centric development environment and to work with some very intricate and large RPG systems. There I was put on the tail-end of the Pillars of Eternity project. This project was gigantic in comparison to what I was used to. I worked hard to get up-to-speed and could contribute to the project almost immediately. Shortly after release, I was transferred to the Tyranny project. There I was the main programmer responsible for managing the inherited UI systems that Pillars worked on and improved the process and workflow so that multiple developers could work on the UI as well as improve the reuse of the UI widgets as much as possible. I also became the first line of defense for some shader related issues and worked on improving the world map to fit the needs of the project.

After Tyranny shipped, I had a decision to make on where I wanted to go. I wanted to explore more of the Software Engineering sphere to see how “real software” was made. I decided to try a more corporate structure and did some contract work for Thales. There I worked on a Unity3D integration that they had for their in-flight entertainment system. After that, they had me learn and help with the UI using the Qt framework with QML. While it was an interesting endeavor it wasn’t really the same as making games.

A coworker of mine from Obsidian found a position at MobilityWare, and recommended I check it out. I did and was hired on as a Senior Software Engineer. There I assisted with the transition of the incredibly popular (1M+ DAU) Solitaire suite of products from native to Unity. I also helped with the localization system, editor tooling, asset management, online-based cross promo system, and more.

Outside of software development, I enjoy hiking, movies, TV, escape rooms, and playing games of all types (board, mobile, PC/console).