Sierra Talents – How did you recruit?

[Unknown,Unknown]

Hi,
I was wondering how Sierra recruited its main talents (namely Al lowe, Lorelai Shannon, Jane Jensen, The Coles, etc.). And, on that matter, what drew Roberta into designing adventure games in the first place? What was her original education?

[Unknown,Unknown]

(re: Sierra Talents) I’m trying to chase a bug (in some code) so I’ll be brief:
I confess that I wasn’t very scientific … Roberta was picked as a designer because she was my wife. Actually, it can be argued that she started the company more than me.
Other designers:
Jim Walls — lived in the town. I don’t remember how we were introduced
Jane Jensen — I assume she wrote me at some point
Al Lowe — I was looking for education product, and ran into him at a computer show — he had written some education games
Josh Mandel — don’t remember
Who am I missing? (there are dozens more, but my mind seems to have gone)
Generally I tended to work backwards from what I was attempting to accomplish. If it felt right to me to do a horror game, the next person who struck me as being creative and into horror, was given a chance. 99% of breaking through to me was timing.
-Ken W

[Unknown,Unknown]

(re: Sierra Talents)

So for my childhood dream of working for Sierra I should have lived in your home-town 🙂

[Unknown,Unknown]

(re: Sierra Talents)

I realize this thread is probably long abandoned and forgotten, but just for completion’s sake, I can fill in a few of the voids.

Jane Jensen was initially hired by a man named Michael Feinberg. Michael had been hired (I believe by Bill Davis) to head up the newly formed “Product Design department,” a department made up of designers who would be in-house rather than contract. Michael only stayed at Sierra a few months.

Bruce Balfour was also hired by Michael Feinberg.

Lorelei Shannon started out as a writer in the Creative Services department, writing InterAction material, ads, box copy, and so on. We brought her into the Product Design department, I think, around the time that Bridget McKenna left.

Gano Haine was also hired by Michael Feinberg, I believe.

Bridget McKenna and Leslie Balfour were, like Lorelei, folded into Product Design from Creative Services.

Scott Murphy became part of the Product Design department after SQ4 was released and Mark Crowe went to Dynamix.

I was initially hired by Guruka Singh Khalsa and Bill Davis as a junior Producer, since there were so many games coming out and only one producer to handle them all. I moved into the Product Design department when that was formed, and then headed up that department after Michael Feinberg left.

–Josh

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