Digital Media Producer
First and foremost I am a storyteller. All that I do in the digital space has been to simply tell a story. From a young age I was already being educated in the power of media because my dad had a huge collection of classic films. We would watch tons of old westerns, World War II films, and all the old sitcoms like "I Love Lucy" and the "Dick Van Dyke Show." The films that impacted me the most were the original Star Wars trilogy. Of course, I couldn't help but also fall in love with other franchises like the DC, Transformers, Pokémon, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Dexter, and tons of other classics.
I started playing video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and from there it was the Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, and many other systems. No Xbox for me though, I'm a PlayStation fan. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent playing the original Star Wars Battlefront, Ratchet and Clank, and the Pokémon games. Those really were the best times because it inspired my own imagination and creative pursuits.
Currently, I love to watch anime, a variety of TV shows, photography, traveling, trying out new restaurants, and most of all spending time with friends.
My Skills and Goals
As you can see I have a diverse range of skills from across the digital spectrum. They have come extremely handy with the many different jobs I have had over the years, but now I know that I want to focus my skills into project management. I love each part of the pipeline that is why I really could not choose one so I decided to go with an area where you get to interact with them all.
My work in news media as a production director and news producer taught me high pressure time management skills as every second counts in that industry. There I got to manage teams of around 5-10 people. Working as a library tech, doing inventory management, and data entry taught me so much about the importance of documentation. Boring for most people, but there is something so peaceful about just grooving to your music, filling out all those data boxes, and knocking out a couple hundred entries in a day.
Now that I just graduated college I hope to find a job as a producer at a video game or animation studio. Until then I am trying to learn as much as I can from Gearbox Software as a quality assurance tester, which is another job that has taught me a lot about documentation and game development. My most recent school project was Telemancer: September's Story, which is a first person fantasy platformer. I was the lead producer and managed multiple teams of 42 people. As far as work projects go we just shipped Tiny Tina's Wonderland and I am glad the public is finally able to enjoy all the hard work we put into that game here at Gearbox. Right now I'm currently working on an animated short as the Creative Director with a team of 15 people so excited to share more on that in the future.
My Education
I just graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and earned a Bachelor's of Arts in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication (ATEC) with a focus in Design & Production. Of course, that is a mouthful, so I like to just say I'm studying animation and gaming.
Before moving to Dallas I was a music major at Abilene Christian University (ACU) and my main area of focus was percussion. My goal was to become a film composer, unfortunately their program was built more for music education, so that's when I made the move to transfer to Texas State Technical College (TSTC). At TSTC I got my Associate's in Digital Media Design. This is where I learn most of my skills in the adobe creative suite. After this I moved to Dallas to continue my education and pursue my BA. Thankfully, in May 2022 I graduated with my BA was able to complete my time in Dallas. Of course, I am always learning new things outside of the classroom.