Brandon Curiel, President and Chief Executive Officer

Brandon served as Vice President of Product Development at Axiom8 Inc., which he co-founded with Philip and the others on the Venan team. During his tenure with Axiom8, he hired the programming team, designed the product architecture, served as principal designer, and wrote several of the server components. He delivered a working prototype, the initial software release, and two major updates in his two years with the company. While seeking financing for Axiom8, Brandon spent eight months as a software consultant, mastering Java web technologies and writing several components for an e-commerce sight for iSolve, Inc. Prior to that, he worked at Heliotrope Studios, where he was Lead Programmer and Co-designer of Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Brandon has a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Cornell University.   [top^]

Tony Ceddia, Art Director

Prior to joining as Art Director and a founding member of Venan, Tony served as a founding member and Lead Artist for Axiom8, Inc. While at Axiom8, he contributed to the design of Ossia™, the company’s proprietary unified communications software, and played a major role in the production of all promotional material, including the design and creation of the company's website. Before the formation of Axiom8, Tony held a senior artist position at Heliotrope Studios, where he was responsible for interface design and the writing, directing, and rendering of animated sequences. In 1994, Tony began his career working for McGraw-Hill School Division in the production of primary educational software. In an effort to better understand the gap between "Hello, world!" and the Teapot, Tony has dabbled in JavaScript, Actionscript, Lingo and Mel Script. He very much prefers his objects made of polygons, however. Tony holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Illustration from Paier College of Art.   [top^]

Jason Cody, Technical Director

Jason earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1998. He began work developing flight and weapon control software for military aircraft at Hamilton Sundstrand upon graduation, and later moved to Kollmorgen Electro-Optical, a manufacturer of submarine periscopes and weapon mounts for military vehicles. At Kollmorgen, Jason was responsible for developing visual simulation software that was integrated into the company’s flagship photonics mast product as an onboard simulator. Jason left Kollmorgen and joined the team at Axiom8, where he developed client-side software for the company’s proprietary communications software, Ossia™. Jason is a longtime game player and avid baseball fan.   [top^]

Mike Hughes, Lead Artist

Mike Hughes was a Lead Artist/Animator at Axiom8 and has over eight years of production experience in the game and publishing industries. Mike is a graduate of the 4-year Illustration program at Paier College of Art. There he studied the use of traditional art materials in the commercial art market, as well as the use of computers in this field. Mike was the Lead Artist for several projects for the McGraw-Hill School Division before he joined Hyper-Quest, a small game company based in Sarasota, Florida. After Hyper-Quest, Mike moved back north to work with Heliotrope Studios on Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. He has also freelanced for several clients, including, Sun MicroSystems, National Geographic On-Line, and Reactor Inc.   [top^]

Michael Nannini, Programmer

Mild mannered UConn student by day, Mike patrolled the streets of Storrs at night as the Husky mascot, vanquishing evil and making the world a safer place. Once he had graduated and passed the Husky mantle on to his protégé, Mike began his career in game development making children's games. After three years of children's games, Mike was given a vision of a flat, swampy land where students were taught the dark art of game development. Desiring further training, Mike left for this far off land where he was soon imprisoned by an evil agency bent on destroying the gaming industry. After toiling for over a year with this dastardly entity, Mike escaped back to his native land in the North East where he happily works free from the reach of his former captors... or so he thought...   [top^]

Mike Hwang, Programmer

Mike, known as “Little Mike” by his colleagues since over one-fourth of the company is named Mike, returns from Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, concentrating on computer graphics and game development. Previously employed as a programming intern, Mike is now a full fledged programmer at Venan. Besides developing and playing video games, Mike enjoys watching Japanese animation, goofing off with friends, and eating faster than anyone he knows. Mike hopes to continue off from his education and build up experience in the gaming industry at Venan.   [top^]

Damian Witt, Programmer

Damian Witt was an Eskimo child orphaned at birth and raised by baby seals. As a child he was instrumental in preventing oil companies from drilling in northern Alaska. Fed up with his life, he found some pants and traveled on a broken iceberg to Japan where he lived for 100 years, mastering the art of ninjitsu. After defeating all of the pirates in the land of the rising sun, Damian decided to conquer the pirates of the west. He hopped on the back of a might wind and flew toward the warm Caribbean islands. Unfortunately, that wind was destined to be a Nor’ easter. Landing in Middletown, CT, Damian has hidden his great powers, masquerading as a simple programmer, searching for the one who knows his true identity. Will he find the one? Will he flip out and kill pirates on sight? No one knows—except Damian Witt.   [top^]

Katy Smith, Producer

Katy earned a Master of Arts degree in Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling in 2001. She began working as a mental health counselor at a high risk facility for juvenile offenders. Naturally, she then decided to become a game producer. She attended Full Sail’s Game Design and Development program and soon got a job working as a Standards Specialist at Electronic Arts Tiburon’s quality assurance department. There, she worked on AAA franchises like Madden, NASCAR®, NCAA®, and Battlefield 2. Katy moved to blustery Connecticut to join Venan, and recently built her first snowman.   [top^]

Alex Kain, Associate Designer

Alex Kain grew up in the frigid tundra of the Northeast US and, after a brief four-year hiatus to the milder climates of Ohio University, he returned to his native lands to assist in the design of video games. After working on a variety of smaller projects during his college years, Alex is now working as a full-fledged member of Venan Entertainment's creative team which includes (but is not limited to): People who like eating cake, a ghost army of former Oscar-winners, various talking animals, and other things that may or may not be figments of his overactive imagination. With a ninja-themed project in the works, and a project focusing on the exploits of a robot already behind him, Alex is quite aware that pirates and zombies must soon follow. Alex has a Bachelors degree in Communications, and a benign History minor.   [top^]

Dylan Maxwell Reilly, Programmer

Dylan escaped from the global IBM machine in 2005 after five years of fending off continued assimilation attempts. For the subsequent two years, he was willfully entertained engineering flourescense micrscopy software for the good of human-kind and profit of industry. General malaise with that locale led to a fortuitous opportunity to work with Venan. Dylan's extracurricular time is mostly filled by the study of Kung-fu and the playing of video games—with occasional overlaps of the two.   [top^]

Andrew Magnotta, Programmer

Andrew completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2006. After being previously employed at Venan as an Intern in 2004-2005, he has returned to be a full time programmer in 2008 after working as a GIS developer at Environmental Data Resources for two years. Andrew is a native resident of Connecticut and is excited to be developing games in his home state while remaining close to family and friends. In his spare time he enjoys playing video games, hanging out with friends, playing video games with his friends, and spending quality time with his loving wife. Andrew hopes to be able to learn from his time at Venan while creating quality games.   [top^]

Anthony Merrill, Programmer

It seems that Anthony was destined to be on the computer from the age of three. Anthony loved watching the monitor to see what would happen when he hit a key. Anthony's love for programming began by accident, when he signed up for a class his freshman year of high school. Anthony thought he was going to health class and ended up in a computer science class instead. From that moment on, Anthony knew that this was his passion! As his third year of high school approached, Anthony started his search for a school to further his programming skills, specifically in the gaming field. Many many hours of gaming had him in a frenzy to make this his career. He could not see himself working in any other field. Anthony found what he was looking for at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. He loved it — cutting edge technology, great environment and crazy gamer people. He graduated with a Bachelors Degree in 2006 and met his wife there, too. Anthony was fortunate to land his first job with Shiny Entertainment in California. Anthony is proud to have a title produced (The Golden Compass) but he realized that the California lifestyle was not for him and his family. Anthony moved back east with the help of Venan Entertainment and has been happily settling into life in Connecticut with his wife, Meredith and their 2 children.   [top^]

Perry Lynch, Programmer

While studying computer science and physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Perry complemented his education by managing video game communities for Agora Games. When not studying or working Perry programmed video games, a hobby which won him multiple awards and gave him a clear view of what he wanted to do professionally. After graduating summa cum laude, he became happily employed by Venan. He loves the experience and the challenge that working at Venan provides, and is happy to be on a great team of knowledgeable people creating quality games. Aside from working, Perry devotes a large part of his free time to Bemani. Whether it be making beats, dancing, or pop'n music, he is almost always engaged in some form of music simulation gaming.   [top^]