John Payne is
the
Chairman and CEO of Croquet, and a member of its Board of Directors. He also serves as
Executive Chairman of GIGXR, Inc., an early stage extended reality (XR) medical training
business serving medical and nursing schools, hospitals, higher education and the U.S.
Department of Defense. Mr. Payne has significant public company executive experience as the
former CEO of two public Internet software companies, Stamps.com (STMP), where he also
served as Chairman, and Day Software (SW: DAYN). While at Stamps, he led the development of
its operating business, its $65 million IPO and a $365 million secondary offering co-managed
by Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney.
He served as Chairman and CEO of SimpleAir, Inc., a technology licensing company, from 2004
to 2020. Mr. Payne is an Inventor who has been awarded more than 20 patents by the USPTO
covering Internet, cybersecurity and digital mail plus wireless technologies which are
widely licensed across the smartphone industry. Mr. Payne holds a B.A. in Economics from
University of California, Irvine. He started life as a Wilderness Ranger for the US Forest
Service working on foot, horseback and skis. In a post COVID world, he splits his time
between Laguna Beach, CA and Boise, ID.
John Payne CEO, Chairman
David A. Smith CTO,
Founder
David A. Smith is the Founder and CTO of Croquet and a member of its Board of Directors. He
has more than 30 years of experience as a pioneer of AR and VR, and has founded 7 companies,
including The Colony, the world’s first 3D adventure/shooter game, and Virtus Corporation,
the first real-time 3D PC design tool, in addition to creating the visualization software
behind James Cameron’s “The Abyss”. He has sold 10’s of millions of games and
applications.
Early in his career, he was co-founder of Red Storm Entertainment with Tom Clancy and Brian
Upton. He was also Chairman of Gensym, the first large-scale public AI company, and most
recently was Chief Innovation Officer & Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin, leading their AR
and VR efforts. He invented 3D portals and co-invented the core tech behind Croquet. He has
been issued 32 patents in 3D, AR, VR and AI by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and holds
a BS in Mathematics from University of Chicago.
Brian is a
20-year
veteran of the game industry. He was one of the
founders of Red Storm Entertainment where he designed the original Rainbow Six and
Ghost
Recon. He spent fifteen years as a senior designer at PlayStation, guiding external
teams
through every stage of production, including innovative indie titles such as Fat
Princess,
Warhawk, Sorcery, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Bound, and Here They Lie. Brian
is the
author of the books The Aesthetic of Play and Situational Game Design.
Brian Upton Chief
Creative
Officer
Vanessa Freudenberg
Chief Architect, Co-founder
Vanessa designed Croquet’s
client/server
architecture, and implemented its client framework as well as the networking
protocol and
global Edge Reflector infrastructure.
A former member of Alan Kay’s research group, she has been developing interactive
systems for more than 20 years with a focus on live, self-supporting architectures
(including Squeak Etoys, Scratch, Lively, Frank, and even a revival of
Smalltalk-78).
Vanessa’s PhD was awarded for new real-time non-photorealistic 3D rendering
techniques.
While he was
attending
the graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yoshiki joined Walt Disney
Imagineering R&D
in 2000 as an intern and helped developing prototypes of Disney’s theme park
attractions. He
also has been involved in Alan Kay’s research group, and participated in the
research and
development effort of education programming environment Squeak Etoys and later took
the
leading role. Yoshiki has worked at the Viewpoints Research Institute, SAP Labs CDG,
and Y
Combinator Research, all of which Dr. Kay founded or helped found.
He was awarded his PhD. for designing and implementing a massively parallel
particle
programming system from Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Yoshiki Ohshima
Chief Scientist, Co-founder
Aran Lunzer
System Visioneer, Co-founder
Aran is another Co-founder who
transferred
from Alan Kay’s former research group, having started working with David Smith in
2017 on
bringing Croquet into the JavaScript world. Aran’s background includes 20 years of
interaction research, focusing on his concept of "subjunctive interfaces":
information
interfaces designed to inform users about the context surrounding a computed result
by
hinting at alternative results from nearby, subtly different computations. He is
always on
the lookout for ways to stir those ideas into the Croquet ecosystem.
Jenn is a
Transylvanian Ui UX developer living in Vancouver, Canada. Her early career began in
fine art but merged with her love for technology - migrated into a career in UX.
Jenn’s work was recently featured in multiple globally published magazines and large
scale signage designs that can be viewed around downtown Vancouver. At Croquet, Jenn
works at enhancing the overall user experience for seamless integration and
interactions.
Jenn Evans UX
Engineer
Zach Fox
Developer Relations Engineer
Zach is a software engineer, photographer,
and friend you haven't yet met. He values learning, his freedom of expression, and
vulnerable conversation. Having grown up with the Internet, Zach deeply understands the way
modern Web technologies can help
authentically connect people from across the world.
Lucas is a
creative software engineer, systems humanist, and craftsman futurist. Lucas has previously
worked on realtime 3D apps, XR-enabled applications, and networking. Lucas is focused on
displaying the team's excellent work in the best light by designing and building
applications that directly demonstrate Croquet's powerful interactive, live, and
collaborative environment. At any odd hour of the day,
he enjoys gaming, exploring music, and mountain biking.