Welcome and thanks for wanting to learn more about me! My name is Garrett (he/him). I was born and raised in Washington, growing up in Ellensburg and Yakima. Since I was just a kid I had become enamored with stories; books, movies, video games, I loved them all. I knew that when I grew up, no matter what field it ended up being in, that I wanted to be a storyteller.

Throughout my life I always loved experiences that could transport you to another place or immerse you in worlds other than our own. My wife and I originally bonded over our love for Disney and theme parks, where you get to walk through fantastical worlds and experience magic. Since I was a kid I loved Halloween and have been a big fan of horror, dressing up and immersing yourself into a darker world where monsters are real. These two things may seem a bit at odds, but the collision of folklore, art, and imagination that both of them require and represent was the spark that made me want to pursue this career.

Right out of college I landed a job in the games industry at Microsoft's Game Test Org. Shortly after my contract expired at Microsoft, I found work on the Matchmaking Test team at Bungie working on their next release: Destiny.

Bungie has been my home for the last 13 years - a feat I'm proud of, as I know it's uncommon in the games industry for people and places to stick around for that long. I had so many fond memories of Bungie games while growing up, and it was surreal walking down the HQ hallway on my first day, past all of the awards, replicas, and lifesize statues of Master Chief. 13 years at this point is almost exactly a 3rd of my life, and over the years I've watched the Bungie HQ slowly become draped in Destiny awards and memorabilia and now more recently Marathon has started adorning the walls. I think back to that first day walking past the accomplishments and art of those who came before me, and now I can point at the awards and art and know that I helped build it.

Sometimes people ask me if I like my job. People in my life see how stressful it can get, caring about a project and feeling the pressure to want to get it right. I always tell them that there's literally no other job I'd want to do, and it's not necessarily because of the day-to-day. There's absolutely nothing that beats launch days, when you get to see players experience what you've built for the first time publicly. Seeing a puzzle click in someone's mind, hearing the excitement in someone's voice when they finally beat a boss they've been working on for hours, watching fan videos of people tearfully saying how important certain moments or releases were to them. I'll usually say that we're not out here saving lives, that this job isn't worth killing ourselves over, and I stand by that. But good games, good art, good storytelling…that shit can make an impact that is worth the stress.

There's literally no other job that I'd want to do.