creating, empowering, and sharing

I've been making games professionally for 23+ years. I started as a digital game artist and transitioned to game designer and producer roles while working at Electronic Arts. I'm always looking for ways to help in whatever ways best benefit my team of collaborators and community.

Currently, on my professional journey, my role is that of Game Design Manager. I feel fulfilled by coaching, mentoring, and advising designers and producers on professional game development teams. I am a service-oriented leader whose commitment is to help each individual thrive in their role and find their path to fulfillment.

Helping teams by fostering a healthy and collaborative environment is what I do every day. I value meeting one-on-one as this is the best way to understand an individual's perspective. Understanding things objectively and subjectively accurately is essential to giving good advice. My role is to do all I can to empower others to fulfill their creative and professional ambitions.

I love my work.

While I have been working most of my adult life in games, I have a broader set of interests that inform and fulfill me personally and professionally. A good game designer must be interested in many fields, systems, and creative mediums outside of games. My interests are continually expanding, but include:

• games

• digital, mainstream, and indie

• board games

• art-games

• experimental games

• interactive/ immersive fiction

• writing (both fiction and non-fiction)

• novels

• educational

• art and illustration

• books and comics

• poster and wall art

• gallery art

• leadership, personal growth, and soft skills

• career coaching and mentoring

• skills for developing creativity

• skills to improve individual and team communication

• team coaching and motivation

• teaching, speaking, and community building

• game design 

• game production

• project and pipeline organization

• talent sourcing for team cohesion

• world history

• International travel

• foreign language (Spanish, Dutch, and French)

• philosophy, ethics, logic, world religions

My Journey

My professional career began In 1999 while studying for my bachelor's degree in digital media at the Art Institute of Colorado. I started working at Electronic Arts in Redwood Shores, CA, working on Road Rash. This role led to a full-time position at the studio as a game artist.

After ~5 years at EA, I migrated from game art to level design. My first level designs shipped on 007 James bond: Everything or Nothing, then I worked on The Sims 2 and Godfather: The Game. By 2004 I was a senior level designer on Tomb Raider: Legend.

In addition to my commercial game work, in 2009, I worked as an independent artist and game developer, freelancing and self-publishing my work.

In 2012 I accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor at Champlain College, teaching game design and production.

I continue to work on new projects, speaking to creative groups and consulting creative projects internationally. I recently returned to the U.S. after leading the production and pipeline development at an independent start-up game studio in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The goal of founding CiGDA was to build an active community of like-minded creatives. What started out as six developers in a downtown Denver cafe has grown into over 1,200 independent devs from across Colorado. The group continues to thrive through thanks to our original mission and goals as stated on the group's meetup page:

CiGDA (often pronounced 'sig-dah') is a free, open and supportive, grass roots group for game developers (artists, designers, coders, etc.) We meet with the purpose of learning and sharing information about independent game development (self-publishing, DIY, bootstrapping, resources, methods, etc.)

Most importantly this group is an accessible support structure to gather artists, designers, programmers, musicians and writers to make self-expressive interactive content for fun and profit.

This group is truly independent. Our topics and events center around content sharing solutions to the challenges faced by independent developers.

We never charge money to attend our meetups nor to play-test games. It is our honor to have you! The Meetup dues are entirely optional, to help us cover the cost of Meetup fees.

NOTE: We have no ties with the much larger IGDA (International Game Developers Association) but many of us are members and also attend IGDA events and conferences.

• Make games

• Share knowledge

• Support one another

I continue collaborating on new game projects with exceedingly talented developers in various capacities on teams all over the world. To stay up-to-date on my creations, projects and endeavors, follow me on twitter. Feel free to contact me here.