Jerald’s career dates back to the early days of the personal computer. During his 25 years at Archimage, he helped transform the company from a small architectural design firm into an interactive design leader. Jerald’s work has received numerous industry design awards and was featured in many publications over the years. In 1995, he was recognized as one of the 50 most outstanding graduates in the history of the UH College of Architecture.

Jerald has personally directed design, animation, and interactive media projects for Fortune 500 companies and world-renowned medical institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine, USDA, University of Texas Health Science Center, Time Warner Communications, Compaq, and the National Institutes of Health. His vision and leadership are behind the creation of several successful web startups, including Playnormous, Collectica, and Military Connections.

The Architect

Jerald's architecture career began at while still studying at the University of Houston, a school where graduated as class valedictorian of the College of Architecture's 1986 undergraduate class. Licensed as an architect in 1990, he was an early user of the PC to produce architectural designs, working drawings, and 3D renderings on projects for Compaq Computer Corporation, Time Warner Communications, and a number of restaurants, churches, and small businesses.

For its 50th anniversary in 1995, the University of Houston College of Architecture selected Jerald as one of its 50 most outstanding graduates and elected him to its Hall of Fame.

The Computer Animator

Beginning in the late 1980s, Jerald was an early experimenter in using desktop software to present 3-dimensional renderings and animation of his firm's architectural design projects. As an original alpha tester for 3DStudio in 1990, Jerald was able to leverage these skills to create a series of award-winning animation pieces for clients, film festivals, and television. Back in the early days of computer animation, an artist often did everything from storyboarding to modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, and rendering.

Jerald's work was often featured on Autodesk showreels, written about in local news publications, and showed up in television commercials. Many pieces took top honors in international competitions such as Worldfest, the CADDIE Awards, and the Telly Awards.

Designer of Web Sites

Back in the days of long-forgotten Compuserve, Jerald was designing web sites for businesses. Clients had their business cards, fax machines, and figured they needed websites next. It didn't take long to see the opportunities presented by the web to create a better way to communicate with a broader audience.

Soon, Jerald and his team were building websites for wide variety of clients, delivering custom-built content management systems, online community solutions, and higher rankings in search engines. All of this was wrapped in carefully crafted layouts with designs tailored to client brands.

• ClickZ: Succeeding in the Post-Dot-Com World
• Houston Business Journal

Working with Health Researchers

So, what is an architect/animator/web guy doing in the field of health research? Well, it's a long story, but to creative people it makes perfect sense. What does an architect do? He analyzes a need and designs the best solution based on a million variables. Same thing here.

The challenge was to create entertaining experiences for kids that deliver a message about health that most of them didn't want to hear. The results were some very cool projects, many of which won design and animation awards for the teams involved.

• NPR - Houston Public Radio
• Digital Commons at the Texas Medical Center
• Serious Games Source
• Future Making Serious Games

The Entrepreneur

The early days of the web lit an entrepreneurial fire in Jerald, one that spurred him to create a series of Internet start-ups. His creative approach to building online properties and brands continually drives him from one start-up to the next.

While at Archimage, Jerald founded Playnormous, an online community where health games are used to help kids stay healthy. Hard work from a talented team transformed his brainchild into a leader in the Games for Health arena. The site garnered quite a bit of success and publicity as it evolved.

• ABC News Houston - HealthCheck
• Houston Business Journal
• Houston Chronicle
• UT Health Science Center - HealthLEADER
• MarketIntellNow - Interview with Playnormous (eHealth Innovator)