Trey's Trek

Where to begin, hmm...Well, let's start with it all, the very beginning. I was born just outside of Chicago, in Batavia Illinois, in a small, square, yellow, wood-heated-home, directly across from the Fermi Labs. My father, at the time, was the manager of the Chicago DuPage County Airport, still active in the US Army National Guard, having already served his time in Vietnam. He would actually fly his Huey over our house, and wave from the open door to me as a child. Really fun memory looking back all these years later. I lived here until I was about 9 years old, at this point dad had transitioned over to being an Air Traffic Controller, and we were relocated to the country in Aroma Park, Illinois. We moved into 7 acres of woods, surrounded by cornfields, and the Kankakee River across the street. I spent my formative years here, tinkering out back in our garage, the woods, etc, as most country kids spend their boredom doing. This spawned my interest into electronics, and eventually computers, after I had ripped up everything electronic within the house to my parent's disdain. This innate curiosity is what eventually lead me all the way to the University of Dayton's Engineering Technology Program. I was undecided, but accepted within their program initially, packed up my belongings and like many others, started my trek out to Dayton Ohio. From here I begin my educational journey. I started as Undeclared Engineering Technology at the University of Dayton (Actual Degree : Grad 2005 BA Communications: RTV, Small Business focus). I later went on to complete an M.S. in Computer Science for Graphics and Motion from DePaul, and additionally earned professional certificates as an Audio Engineer, Realtor (Passed both state and federal exams, licensed in Colorado, but non-practicing right now.), UI/UX, Scrum Master, Associate Project Manager (PMI Institute), and more. As I understood long ago, this is not a field you begin an educational journey within expecting an end. Education within this field is continuous and cumulative. During this time and just prior, I had actually already started my career to some degree. I had worked one year in TV/Film production in Los Angeles for a small production company that oversaw a TV show on the Learning Channel, Overhaulin, while also learning Audio Engineering and Post Production by night at Sound Masters Audio Institute out in Alhambra, CA. Due to needing to complete one final business credit, which I was able to do remotely at this point, I was able to work and complete my education in Los Angeles, gaining my first bit of experiences within the industry. After a year of seasonal work, I wrapped up and headed back home to Chicago, eyeing graduate school. During my senior year of college at the University of Dayton, I was introduced to stop motion animation. Prior to this, I had largely never looked at nor heard of computer graphics. This suddenly greatly interested me, as I saw a way to tie everything together. While working towards my graduate degree, I of course needed to stay employed, which ultimately lead me out to Americaneagle.com, an amazing, accomplished web design, hosting, and professional development firm, just outside Chicago in Park Ridge, IL. Here I got my first chops and experiences with web development, something I am eternally grateful for to this day. During the day I worked out here starting in 2007. At night, I would attend class downtown Chicago learning about Animation, GPUs, Databases, Networking, Data Structures, Algorithms, C++, Java, etc. All the while dreaming of working just behind me at world famous Midway Games. Unfortunately, as luck would have it I graduated during the recession, and Midway closed its doors sadly during this period. Leading me to look elsewhere, and upon a road trip during a trimester break, I learned about the blooming Video Game Development Scene going on in a place called Austin, TX.