
Jack of Many Trades
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Area

Jack of Many Trades
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Area
Former professional graphic designer (for newspaper advertising), turned Webmaster, turned Software Engineer, turned Entrepreneur...
I have always worked in a deadline or project oriented environment. I have professional experience as a C++, Java, and Web developer. I have written client and server side code in networked applications. Over the past 10 years, I have lead and managed several people on successful commercial software projects. 7 of those years were full time in the commercial video game industry. I am still doing independent contract game and software development but I have also begun to branch out into other business ventures that are neither software nor technology related.
OO design and architecture (C++/Java), commercial video game software development (both PC and console), web application development (PHP, Javascript, JSP,J2EE, MySQL), project management, graphic design, business development
(Retail industry)
September 2008 — Present (11 months)
The Baker's Dog is a pet bakery in Myrtle Beach, SC that makes fresh baked healthy pet treats. One of our unique features is our highly technical packaging process which allows us to incorporate customer submitted photos on to our treat bags with no significant additional effort or cost to our retail packaged products. (In other words, you can stick your dog's picture on your treat package very easily!) I have also managed a highly successful online marketing campaign using Twitter and other social media.
(Computer Games industry)
December 2006 — Present (2 years 8 months)
Blast Off is a privately held corporation based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I think it's pretty awesome. Blast Off is my umbrella corporation through which I run my various business ventures. And boy oh boy, do I mean "various". The thing that really established Blast Off is contract video game development and consulting. But Blast Off also owns a sand blasting operation and is in the process of starting up a pet bakery and retail store. I also serve as partner and advisor on various start up efforts that need my technical expertise.
(Partnership; 1-10 employees; Think Tanks industry)
November 2004 — December 2006 (2 years 2 months)
803 is a think tank and development company that has both internal and work for hire development projects. I oversaw the design and development of all software projects. Through my experience and connection with the games industry, we were hired to ship Backyard Basketball for the PC and PS2 in less than 6 months. I left 803 after the rigorous video game contract was completed to pursuit other business opportunities.
(Public Company; Computer Software industry)
December 2003 — June 2005 (1 year 7 months)
I worked as the Lead Programmer on several multi-platform Backyard Sports titles. I also led an effort to consolidate the common technologies that all of the sports games used into a simple, yet flexible and modular framework called SportsBase. I left Atari to move back to South Carolina and become self employed.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
2001 — 2003 (2 years)
Started out as a gameplay programmer in the 989 Sports' NHL Face Off games. Totally rewrote both the AI system to use a simple and powerful hierarchal state machine to control both team and individual behaviors. I also wrote a collision detection system for the puck and goalie to determine true goal scores and create realistic physical interactions. Then I moved on to Lead Humongous Entertainment's Backyard Basketball for the PS2. This was a "from scratch" project that was the first Backyard title to ship on the PS2 platform. It shipped on time and under budget. SolWorks closed it's doors due to lack of funding.
(Public Company; Computer Software industry)
2001 — 2001 (less than a year)
I worked for the EA.com division during the dot-bomb days. Our studio was tasked with porting the full 3D version of the PC sports titles to run in the browser and interact with web services for user configuration and stats reporting. I worked on the NBA Live product writing both server and engine code. EA closed the studio that same year
(Computer Software industry)
2000 — 2001 (1 year)
Worked on several trivia based games writing gameplay and networking code. Jellyvision laid off 95% of staff a year later.
(Public Company; Computer Software industry)
1995 — 1999 (4 years)
Was a major contributor to forming the new Online Department while maintaining my position as a graphic designer. I helped with technical planning, research, and budgeting. From there, I was promoted to oversee the department. I had 1 other web developer and 2 full time sales staff. Through sheer programming effort, I went from copying and pasting the news stories every night to a fully automated pipeline. I left the position to seek out full time employment as a software developer.
Diploma , 1993
software development, video games, automotive technology, hot rods and custom cars