Unless you count my job behind the redemption counter at a Capcom-owned arcade, my first industry job was as an assistant technician in Midway's video prototype lab (which is a fancy way of saying I was a slave to their hardware engineers for two summers).

In my regular duties I assisted with the development of major franchises Cruis'n, NFL Blitz, TouchMaster and others by repairing arcade machines, building wiring harnesses, burning EPROMS, testing video monitors, setting up factory assembly lines, and doing anything else that was required of me.

At Midway I witnessed first hand how a major game studio functions day-to-day and I worked around some of the industry's most brilliant and creative minds. Some of my other noteworthy accomplishments include logging over 1000 miles on the cafeteria's Rush 2049 machine and battling on the very first networked Mortal Kombat arcade machine.