bio

I’m a multiple Emmy nominated director, animator, writer and illustrator, probably best known for my work as one of the directors and producers of the breakthrough preschool series Blue’s Clues. I was also the Supervising Director for the incredible preschool series The Backyardigans. I’m truly lucky to be able to say I’ve been making cartoons professionally for 25 years, and it all began when I was about 12 years old, when I saw Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings at a local dollar movie house, and decided to turn my lifelong interest in drawing and painting and music toward telling stories with those things.  I studied filmmaking and art at Ithaca College in upstate NY, where I earned a BFA in Film, Photography and Visual Arts.  A few years after I graduated from Ithaca, finding it tough to land a job in animation, (you know–without prior experience(!)), I studied traditional animation at NYU under Oscar-winning animator and author John Canemaker. I actually started working professionally before I graduated from NYU, including on the pilot for Blue’s Clues, (called Blueprints at the time), and I got my MFA in Film Animation in 1996.

My time on Blue’s Clues was life-changing. For the pilot, I got the opportunity to help develop the animation system for the show, and I co-designed Blue.  After graduating from NYU, I put aside my plans to move to LA and try to break into animated features, and began animating on the show, where I was soon promoted to Animation Director, then to Supervising Director and eventually to Animation Producer. I worked on Blue’s Clues and its puppet spin-off Blue’s Room for about nine years, and helped create over a hundred half hour episodes, a direct-to-video feature, Blue’s Big Music Show, and various interstitials, bumpers, promos, print ads, and books.  It was an incredible experience that took my love of animation and storytelling and really focused it toward a specific audience that I love to tell stories for, alongside some of the most talented and good-hearted people, many of whom I’m lucky to say I’m still friends with. That time was also the beginning of my education on the value of understanding your audience, being flexible with process and technique to manage both artistic vision and tight deadlines, the importance of clear, task-oriented communication, the value of active listening, and (maybe most important of all), that creative leadership is service.

Since Blue’s Clues I’ve continued to look for opportunities to create with people who really care about art and the audience. I’m lucky to say I’m still working in an industry that can be tough, but that I love, and I’m currently having a great time being a Dad, and writing and developing several projects for film, TV and print.