Geoffrey C. Grabowski's Resume

Contact Information

Geoffrey C. Grabowski
raindog@raindog.org
1719 Arlington Court
Pittsburgh, PA 15210
(412) 812-5256

Objective

I am seeking employ as management or creative talent in jobs that utilize and expand my diverse skillset as a creator, manager, educator and technician.

Creative / Publishing Skills

• Five years of experience with intellectual property creation and development. During that time, I created, managed and maintained the Exalted adventure gaming franchise for White Wolf Game Studio. I designed the game's mechanical system, wrote the vast majority of its initial content and saw to the maintenance and expansion of the product line with books written by contractors according to outlines I developed.
  Exalted sold over a quarter-million units across the product line during my stewardship, has a regular readership of over ten thousand readers, and has been the subject of two trilogies of novels. Exalted consistently maintained best-of-breed performance in its challenging marketplace, developed into one of White Wolf's flagship product lines, and was translated into five languages.
  My work on Exalted included preparing entertainment industry-specific and general property pitches for potential licensors. My work on the Exalted property bible was noted by my superiors as catalyzing similar projects across White Wolf's stable of properties. Exalted was licensed for development as a video game title for the XBox by the Black Isle Studio unit of Interplay based on the material I prepared.
• Five years of experience in production-line publishing. My duties included preparation of wholesale solicitation and catalog materials, proofing, art-noting, product team management, content and technical editing.
• Three years of experience as a full-time freelance writer in the adventure gaming industry. I contributed to more than 25 titles for Atlas Games, Target Games, White Wolf Game Studio, Rubicon Games, Sword and Sorcery Studios and Pagan Publishing. During my time as a freelance writer, I learned to have good ideas on command while still working within the outline of the hiring party, to produce high-quality text that included both creative material and game mechanics, and to get myself picked out of the baying pack of would-be writers.

Office / Management Skills

• Ten years experience in the preparation of professional-grade proposals and written documents. I am experienced with verbal and written reporting and presentation, time management, contact development and retention, public relations, product representation and the maintenance of business confidentiality.
• Extensive experience in personnel management and human resource allocation. As Exalted developer, I managed a stable of 25+ contract writers, including hire / fire decisions, product disbursements, pay requests and consultation on pay rate decisions.
• Exceptional personal, email and telephone skills. I have had ten years of experience working remotely, managing contractors and operating as a freelance writer in a small and competitive marketplace.
• Experience with the operation, care and feeding of the regular gamut of office machinery; FAX machines, photocopiers, paper shredders, multi-line phone systems.

Computer Skills

• HTML. Taught basic HTML continuously for over a year. Phased new technology instruction into the curriculum.
• Networking. Knowledge of TCP/IP, IP v.6, ATM, Frame Relay, DNS, POTS switching, OSI Level 3 routing and other WAN technologies. Extensive knowledge of Internet services (FTP, HTTP, etc). I taught TCP/IP Networking from the fundamentals of switching through packet structure to TCP network routing structures, VPN, network security, etc and have an instructor-level familiarity with that material.
• UNIX. Extensive user experience with SunOS, Ultrix, Mach, and general UNIX commands and tools, network troubleshooting tools, X-Windows, various editors and mailers.
• Wintel Hardware / Software. Extensive experience installing, maintaining, teaching and upgrading the software and hardware components of PCs. Operating systems include Windows 95 / 98, Windows NT, Windows XP through SP2, Windows 3.0 through 3.11 (including Norton Desktop), MS-DOS, OS/2. I consider setting up a Windows system from scratch parts to be a routine task. I have exhaustive experience with Microsoft Word and strong familiarity with Excel and other Microsoft Office products.

Work Experience

• 1993 - Present: Freelance Author
  Freelance writing and editing in the adventure gaming market. Primarily active from 1997-2000.
• 2000 - 2005: White Wolf Publishing
  Developer (Band Manager), Exalted adventure game.
• 1999 - 2000: Computer Tech
  Part time instructor in the evening Networking program. Taught classes in TCP / IP, HTML / CSS, Windows NT / DOS.

Education

Professional Organizations

Member, Academy of Adventure Games Art and Design.
Active Status Member, Horror Writer's Association.

Government Offices

Member, Civilian Draft Board, United States Selective Service System.

Publications

References

Availability