A quick review of the extraordinary places I've been lucky enough to encounter in my work life.


In the summer of 1983, I was hired by Bill Atkinson as an Apple summer intern. That was the year that Bill was finishing up MacPaint at his house in Los Gatos, which was where I worked. We went in to Apple about once a week, so I go to know the Macintosh software team and see their almost-finished work. This was the era of "90 hours/week and loving it" T-shirts and the debut of the Lisa -- the atmosphere was inspirational and the world was ready to be changed. I went back to MIT that fall determined to finish up my degree and get back to Apple ASAP.

In the fall of 1984, I did, but 7 out of the 10 members of the Mac software team had moved on by then. Steve Jobs and others were soon to follow, in the infamous Jobs/Scully falling-out.

So, on my birthday in November 1985, I moved over to NeXT Computer. NeXT was my most formative experience; I stayed there for 7 1/2 years, developing Display PostScript and our window sytem, and managing the graphics software group and some other parts of the software group.

As almost everyone who worked at NeXT in those days will attest, NeXT was the most amazing group of people I ever worked with, or expect to work with again.
In it's later incarnation in the early 90s, NeXT moved more towards providing custom application tools for corporations, and I wanted to move into the (at that time burgeoning!) multimedia industry. Through my friend Mickey Mantle, I got in touch with Brøderbund Software, and went to work there in April 1993. I managed the tools group, and learned the joys of living in Marin and the agony of developing for Windows. Brøderbund has had a tough road in the years since.

After getting my multimedia feet wet at Brøderbund, I went to Pixar to start up the multimedia group there in November 1994. A very dedicated group of us managed to make Toy Story Animated StoryBook, a piece of multimedia work we're still very proud of.

After Pixar closed down it's interactive division, I moved to the film side of Pixar. I was lucky enough to end up on the crew of Geri's Game, the short film directed by Jan Pinkava. The Geri's Game crew was a pretty dedicated bunch, and the result was a treat. Following that time, I worked as an effects technical director on the feature films A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2. For more details on my time at Pixar click here.

As year 2000 came, I had a bad episode of RSI at Pixar, as have many, many other Pixar employees. That, plus the desire to stay in a smaller company, motivated me to move on. In June 2000 I joined Pulse Entertainment. Pulse is a startup in San Francisco that allows people to stream 3D animation across the Web, and was originally founded by Young Harvill, a friend from the days when NeXT and VPL were only a few hundred yards apart in Redwood City. 2000 Holiday Party pictures are here.
In February 2001, I went independent as Stoneschool Productions, doing freelance production and web work (as the URL of this site attests, it's a name I've used for many years). It was my first time working for myself, and you have to love the freedom and independence. One of my primary clients was the graphic design firm of Danilo Black.

In October 2001, I decided to dive back into a team-oriented production job, and through my friends Glenn Entis and Evan Hirsch, I started talking to the Maxis studio of Electronic Arts. I'm working on the new single-player version of The Sims! For the Halloween 2003 event, we were visited by a strange creature from the game.

We shipped The Sims 2 in October 2004, and in December I transferred to the EA Partners group, which works with external developers.

I've gone to the E3 show for many years whether or not I've been working in the games business.

Here's what I saw in 2005.

Here's what I saw in 2006.

Here are a few of the friends I've made at EA.

Around 2005, through volunteering for the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival (see below), I met Shuzo, the President of Polygon Pictures. A couple years later Polygon was looking bring in someone from overseas to help scale up their operations, and I finally got my chance to work here in Tokyo where I am now.

Google Japan

I left Polygon in late 2011 and started interviewing both in Tokyo and in SF. I decided to go work for the YouTube group at Google in Tokyo; after a few months I shifted over to work on Google Maps for iOS, which is what I'm doing now.

ACM SIGGRAPH

ACM SIGGRAPH is the non-profit organization that sponsors the annual SIGGRAPH conference. While I've never been an employee, I've been a volunteer for ACM SIGGRAPH for most of my professional life, including Computer Animation Festival Chair, Panels Chair, Director for Communications, Animation Theater Director, Course Speaker, Course Reviewer, and Sketches Jury Member.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2010.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2007.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2006.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2005.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2004.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2003.

Here's some of the stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH 2002.
If you prefer a more bland presentation style, here is a recent (but not necessarily current) resume.