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Development Team

These are the people responsible for developing Arbopals:

InfiniteSpaces, Virtual World Design Centre   Loyalist College Arbopals Development Team

Peter O’Brien

President and Chief Executive Officer; Director

Peter O’Brien is a communications entrepreneur with extensive experience in fundraising, public affairs, communications, issues management and running successful businesses. For three years Peter was the principal communications consultant for Trees Ontario, North America’s largest not-for-profit tree planting corporation. Other corporate clients have included Accenture, Canada Trust, Cossette Communication Group, Imperial Capital, JWT, The Monitor Company, Ontario Medical Association, University of Toronto and VIA Rail. Earlier he was a Director of Communications and a Director of Fundraising at various educational institutions. He has written or edited four books and has published articles in a wide assortment of publications. He received his BA in English from the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), his MA in English from McGill University, and he attended the Banff School of Fine Arts. He is a past or current member of the International Association of Business Communicators, the Canadian Public Relations Society, Association of Fundraising Professionals and International P.E.N. (Canadian Section). He has been a volunteer for various charities and has won various awards, including a Graphis Gold Award.

Peter Neumann

Vice President, Legal and Finance; Director

Peter Neumann is a lawyer and former partner in the litigation department of McCarthy Tétrault LLP, one of Canada’s oldest and most distinguished law firms. He provided advice and litigation services to a wide range of individual and corporate clients such as financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, and regulatory bodies. Peter received his B.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto and his LL.B. from Dalhousie University. He is a former member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (P.Eng.), the Medico-Legal Society of Toronto and the Advocates Society. He is currently Senior Consulting Editor with Lancaster House Publishing, Canada’s premier publishers in the field of Labour, Employment and Human Rights Law.

Katherine Magee

Director

Katherine Magee is a marketing and environmental entrepreneur with experience in both the start-up and corporate worlds. Her firms have helped individuals, businesses, schools and community groups with action plans and implementation strategies for going green and ensuring environmental sustainability. In late 2007 she sold her company www.greenopolis.ca to Waste Management. She is currently the President of Consultingreen, and Principal in The Magee Resource Group. Before founding her own companies, she spent 15 years in senior management positions in a variety of industries in both Toronto and Vancouver, including six years with Franklin Templeton Investments, most recently as Vice President – Marketing for Canada. She has extensive media expertise, both in print and online. Katherine received her BA in International Relations from the University of Toronto and her MBA from the Rotman School of Management. She has lived and travelled through Africa, Europe, Asia and Central America.

Mark Kirkpatrick

Director of InfiniteSpaces, Virtual World Design Centre, Loyalist College

Mark Kirkpatrick is an expert in the design and delivery of cost-effective, high performing technology solutions to solve complex problems. Mark is experienced in all facets of the project life cycle, from initial feasibility and technical design through documentation, implementation, user training and post implementation review. With over 20 years in the technology field, Mark has worked for several of Canada’s largest firms across a number of industries. Most recently Mark moved to Loyalist College to head the technology department. Two years ago Mark was instrumental in the creation of the Virtual World Design Centre and currently leads the award-winning, creative and highly motivated team of staff and students in the creation of virtual world experiences. Mark received his BSc in Applied Science from Queen’s University and received his MBA from the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster. Mark is also a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (P.Eng.).

Bruce Robb

Creative Lead

Bruce Robb is the former Senior Writer for Webkinz, the popular children’s virtual world website. As part of the creative team, he helped create games, activities, gameplay and NPCs (Non-Playing Characters). He was also responsible for editing all written content on the site, including e-books, the site newspaper and all scripts. Bruce has also been a children’s writer and story editor for television and film for the last 20 years. He has over 170 production credits, writing for broadcasters such as Disney, CBS, ABC, HBO, Showtime, Fox Family, PBS, CBC, CTV and TVO. He has worked on television series such as Caillou,Ripley’s Believe it or Not, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Babar, Gerald McBoing Boing, and Rolie Polie Olie, as well as story editing the feature-length film New Waterford Girls. He also helped develop and wrote on the pod-cast series, Gemma for the World Cup of Soccer. He has written, directed and edited corporate videos for a variety of clients, including Nike Canada, Gillette, Duracell and Super Nintendo, all through TSN, for whom he also wrote and edited commercials. Bruce holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and also studied at Cooper Union in New York City and the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta.

Roy Schulze

Website Development

Roy Schulze is a Toronto-based writer and graphic designer with an expertise in online communities that extends back to a time when they used to lumber along at 300 baud. Over the last 15 years, he has managed the communications needs of a number of small software firms, including a seven-year stint as the Director of Communications at Galleon Software, overseeing the company’s technical documentation, marketing communications, corporate identity, and graphic design. Roy brings with him a broad understanding of communications practices across several disciplines and the specific needs of smaller, start-up companies.

Kyle MacKenzie

Social Media Strategist, Photographer, Videographer

Kyle MacKenzie is an online communications consultant, adventure seeker, campfire superstar and ultimate frisbee warrior. With a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Theatre from the University of New Brunswick, and a Post-Graduate Communications Certificate from Loyalist College, Kyle is now on a mission to find unique ways to spread the good word about the one and only planet Earth.

Alexander Taskey

Fundraising and Investor Relations

Alexander Taskey is the Founder & Managing Director at Taureye Capital. He leads the fundraising and investor relations’ activities with Arbopals Inc. Alexander manages and advises seed, early stage and mid-cap companies in the IT, health care and real estate space and is actively engaged in setting strategic initiatives and follow-through for a variety of growth companies. Alexander attended Ryerson University for Commerce. In 2004 he also founded Executive Car Care, a service industry growth fund.

Nathan Olivieri

Arbopals Music

Nathan Olivieri has been a musician his whole life, first with the piano, then the guitar. He is currently at Fanshawe College in the Music Industry Arts program. He is also putting together a music program for kids in Grades 5-6.

InfiniteSpaces, Virtual World Design Centre

Loyalist College Arbopals Development Team

Loyalist College has distinguished itself as a leading creator of educational and interactive simulations in Virtual Worlds. Past and current partners include the U.S. State Department, Canadian Border Services Agency, University Health Network, US Naval Postgraduate School and Abel (York University’s e-learning initiative). In 2008 the College established the Virtual World Design Centre to extend its expertise and to enable other organizations and institutions in education, business, and government to achieve a high degree of competency in Virtual Worlds. The Centre is uniquely qualified to apply excellence in design, architecture, experiential creation, building and scripting, to create engaging environments for training, marketing and promotion, symposia and conferences, and a range of other opportunities in emerging Virtual World platforms. The Centre won the Colleges Ontario Innovation Award for 2008, and the 2008 Orion Learning Award of Merit.

Liam Edwards   Team Leader

With over two years experience in game design, Liam lead the development team throughout the project and contributed his skills to flash development, conceptual and level design. He is currently employed as Lead Artist with InfiniteSpaces in Belleville Ontario.

Will Farr   Art and Animation

Currently employed by InfiniteSpaces, William Farr works as an artist and designer of virtual world educational and interactive spaces. He specializes in animation, modeling, texturing, along with video editing, game, graphic design. Throughout this project he supported the team in the creation of art and animation.

Candace Foy   Lead Artist

Candace is completing her last year in the animation program at Loyalist College and has worked with the Virtual World Design Centre focused on the Arbopals project. Candace was the lead artist on the project and was the driving force behind the creation of the base character for Arbopals.

Michael Chabot   Lead Programmer

Michael is completing his last year in the animation program at Loyalist College and has worked with the Virtual World Design Centre focused on the Arbopals project. Michael utilized his game design and programming skills to create many of the things you cannot see in Arbopals.

Kristen Kiomall   Lead Animator

Kristen is completing her last year in the animation program at Loyalist College and has worked with the Virtual World Design Centre focused on the Arbopals project. Kristin was the lead animator on the project and created many of the Arbo actions in world and during game play.

Joshua Watts   Art and Animation

Joshua Watts has been involved in different facets of the entertainment industry since 1999. He is currently completing his last year in the animation program at Loyalist College and provided support in both animation and art to the project.

Andrew Tarzwell   Programming

Andrew is completing his last year of computer science at Trent University. Andrew’s focus was primarily on the creation of supporting programming.