Company Biographies 
Founded in 1998, Flying Lab Software assembled a top notch team of game industry professionals with nearly a century of combined industry experience. Below you will find a list of principle individuals who bring Pirates of the Burning Sea to life.
Russell Williams, CEO
Russell Williams was program manager for international best sellers Microsoft Exchange, the Microsoft Golf series, and of course, Rails Across America. Before that he worked on the very first Windows email program, DaVinci eMail. A devoted computer game fanatic, he is proud to contribute to the interactive entertainment community through his membership in the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, and has an extensive collection of games going all the way back to the Apple II.
Michelle Williams, Producer
Michelle brings 10 years of experience in managing within the software industry, including testing client/server applications at Microsoft for the Development Studio products. She was liaison manager between Real Networks and Nokia, and has extensive experience in all aspects of testing, including localization testing and coordinating betas. She has written and executed manual and automated tests on platforms as diverse as high-end PCs and WAP-enabled cell phones.
Chris Pramas, Content Director
Biography coming soon!
Paul Canniff, Design Director/Founder
Paul Canniff is a respected development manager on both large (50-100 people) and specialized teams for a diverse range of products, from network monitoring software to desktop publishing. He was Developer on Microsoft LAN Manager, Development Manager on Microsoft Publisher ‘98, and Lead Program Manager on Microsoft Exchange. He was the primary Game Designer for Rails Across America. He brings 20 years of programming and management experience to the team.
Kevin Maginn, Designer
Kevin Maginn is a developer and scripter specializing in online media. He was a founding member of the internet department at AccuWeather, developing their initial web products. He developed a spam-handling database for Microsoft WebTV, coded the interface between the Lycos personalized portal page and an LDAP-based user directory system, and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator he maintained and extended the web interface to a Peoplesoft-based personnel and inventory management system. On Pirates of the Burning Sea, Kevin developed the user interface scripting code, the web-based online user content system, and our database-driven web site. His longtime interest in tabletop roleplaying game design has borne fruit as he moved into a design role on the project, creating our skill system and other character-centric features.
Brady Houck, Lead Programmer
Brady spent five years at SmartRun Systems as a software engineer on a variety of projects, including the creation of device drivers for a video capture board, computers for hydroplanes, and the Advanced Authoring Format. He joined the games industry and worked for Humongous Entertainment for four and a half years as a senior programmer on titles such as Backyard Baseball for the GameCube and Backyard Skateboarding for the PC, and served as lead programmer on Backyard Basketball for the PC. While at Humongous he spent a year in the systems group working on the core technology used in many of their titles. Brady has worked on two Academy of Interactive Arts and Science Game of the Year winners: Backyard Basketball (5th Annual PC Family Game of the Year), and Backyard Skateboarding (8th Annual Children’s Game of the Year).
Rick Saada, Senior Developer/Founder
Rick was the solo developer of first Windows RPG game, Castle of the Winds. His previous Microsoft experience includes DOS Word, PM Word, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Money. He brings 17 years of programming experience to the team. Rick was single-handedly responsible for the automated routing system used in Rails Across America, as well as developing the normal mapping process for Delta Green.
Bruce Sharp, Art Director
Bruce is a veteran artist and illustrator whose work for publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, Omni Magazine, and The Washington Post spans a twenty-year career. In addition to his long professional experience in traditional media, he entered the games industry ten years ago as an art director at Sierra On-Line and has since worked at BOSS Game Studios and Microsoft Game Studios. He’s also been a teacher for fourteen years at Seattle Art Institute in commercial illustration and 3-D modeling and animation. His thousands of students now populate the game studios of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, and his mastery of light, color, and shadow has graced titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, Zoo Tycoon, and Counterstrike on the Xbox.
Mat Staltman, Animation and Character Lead
Biography coming soon!
Ken Osuna, Character Art Lead
Ken worked on the character art for Arenanet’s Guild Wars, and modeling and texturing on Microsoft’s Flight Simulator series. He has also worked on characters, environments, and UI for WildTangent, as well as 3D characters for Wizards of the Coast.
Raymond Wood, Technical Mission Lead
Raymond was the founder and original designer for GarouMUSH, a World of Darkness online game he launched in 1993 that is still running today. For fifteen years he worked on a variety of MUDs and other pioneering online projects, and for four years he was a system administrator for the AltaVista search engine. As Technical Content Lead, Raymond supervises the implementation of mission and world content, designing new systems as needed and working directly with the developers on feature requests.
Troy Hewitt, Director of Community Relations
Troy Hewitt has 9 years of game and game-related career experience, having begun his career as a News Manager and freelance writer for gaming news sites. He worked on The Matrix Online as the Community Manager before becoming the Live Events Lead, where he created live events within the game and managed a team of writers and ‘digital actors’ in the delivery of custom content to the players. As Director of Community Relations at Flying Lab Software, Troy serves as the first line of contact for fan relations, 3rd party sites, and convention presence as well as scheduling and oversight for all media requests related to staff interviews, article requests, and the creation and distribution of PotBS-related media.
