Gary Keith Brubaker was appointed Director of 51²è¹Ý Guildhall in June 2012. Brubaker has extensive experience in the games industry, having served as a development director, a manager of core technology, and lead programmer. This breadth of knowledge has given Brubaker a well-rounded perspective of the game industry business, preparing him for his role as an educator and administrator.
Brubaker began his programming career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on the Voyager and Galileo projects. He remembers playing one of the first (if not THE first) Pong machines in San Jose, California. But, he wanted more and quickly convinced one of his friends at Cal Tech to "loan" him time on the mainframes to play other early games. His first individual game project was on the Apple II, a Lunar Lander clone in the early 1980s.
Brubaker turned his passion for games into a career in 1992 when he joined LucasArts Entertainment. While there he worked on Rebel Assault, Shadows of the Empire, The Curse of Monkey Island, The Dig, and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.
He later joined Stormfront Studios, where he worked on the Electronic Arts’ title Lord of the Rings: Two Towers. He also contributed to a number of other titles including Lego MyStyle. Gary moved to Dallas to join Atari/Paradigm as Manager of Core Technology. He led a group that created the engine for a number of Atari games including: Terminator 3: The Redemption, Mission Impossible: Operation Surma, Dungeon & Dragons Heroes and Backyard Baseball. Brubaker joined 51²è¹Ý in 2004, and has taught game studies, programming, and supervised master’s degree students in the programming specialization.
Brubaker received a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.B.A. from 51²è¹Ý.
Director Brubaker also serves as a Faculty member for AT&T Virtualization Center and .