I've always had a passion for creating fun and memorable experiences. Before I was brave enough to want to be in the video game industry, I wore many different hats. For 13 years, I managed and performed in bands that collaborated with many other successful artists [such as Of Montreal and Corey Smith]. During this time, the doors were opened to many great experiences such as performing in front of thousands of people which further my experienced in music production. This also lead me to direct/film short films and music videos that played at festivals. Another great life experience I had was when I was a math professor. I became a math professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville by the age of 19. My goal was to create a class atmosphere that would lead students to conquering their math fears. I held high reviews among students and colleagues. Later, I became a software engineer for a company contracted by the government with the second highest security
clearance. This is with the Department of Defense where I will work on systems for the Marines. All while still having a good time being young and enjoying life whether its playing competitive Magic The Gathering trading card game (with many near pro tour entry misses) all the way to strapping on a wake board and hitting the wakes (face first).
However, with all this said though, one thing that still remained deeply rooted in my life was my love for video games. My closest brother and I would spend countless hours saving the lands of Hyrule to facing our fears in the depths of Silent Hill. We are lucky enough to have a mother that bought us every home game console, and older brothers that gave us all of their retro consoles that released before our time. This allowed me to value the history of video games so I never believed in trading them into stores, I kept every game in a collection, and
yes I'm proud to say I completed all of them (but had to use the Konami code for Contra and I accidentally broke our copy of MDK2). The thought of creating video games didn't enter my mind until around 2003 where I spent an endless amount of time creating games in RPG Maker 2. This game gave me the ability to create my own adventures with the use of scripts and events which was so revolutionary to me. At that moment, I started a flame that would lead to the desire to create video games for a living.
My first step towards the industry was to get a bachelors degree in computer science. Then I knew I wanted to apply to one of the top video game graduate programs in the world called Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. In the meantime, I started to attend game jams all around the world. One of my favorite game jams involved journeying to the head office of Microsoft Studios in Canada. There I had the opportunity to
learn and talk to industry veterans. By the end of it, my teammate and I successfully made a great game that was stored by the organizers to show off at future occasions. The picture below is of my teammate and I presenting at the studio, and I can officially say I slept on the floor of Microsoft Studios Canada.
Eventually, I felt like I had developed my skills and built up enough funds to apply to the graduate program I
had my eyes on for years and I was very excited to get accepted! I immediately packed up my belongings, including my Banjo-Kazooie costume, and headed towards Orlando, FL! I was very excited to start the journey of a life time at Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy!
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy - Cohort 15
~FIEA ranked number one in the world for game development by The Princeton Review~
