Gabe Newell - Founder/Managing Director
Gabe held a number of positions in the Systems, Applications, and Advanced Technology divisions during his 13 years at Microsoft. His responsibilities included running program management for the first two releases of Windows, starting the company's multimedia division, and, most recently, leading the company's efforts on the Information Highway PC. His most significant contribution to Half-Life was his statement "C'mon, people, you can't show the player a really big bomb and not let them blow it up."

Mike Harrington - Founder/Director of Development
Mike's development career began at Dynamix, where he worked on a variety of sports titles for GameStar/Activision. He spent the last nine years at Microsoft working as a developer or lead developer on OS/2, Windows NT and Microsoft Bob v1 and as a development manager on Microsoft Bob v2 and Microsoft News Viewer. Mike was pleased to learn that resistance is not, in fact, futile.


Ted Backman - Art Director/Conceptual Artist/Illustrator/Animator
Ted has been a freelance artist and animator in the Seattle area for the last four years. Ted developed many of the more unusual monsters for Half-Life, including the Head Crab, Mr. Friendly and Big Momma. He is also a black-belt karate instructor.

Kelly Bailey - Senior Game Designer, Sound, Music
Kelly did all of the music and sound effects for Half-Life, and wrote sound code to create character speech and DSP reverb effects. He spent last Summer and Fall working primarily on Half-Life game design. (Translation: spent 6 months in a big, trashed corner office, all day & night with Guthrie, Casali & Riller eating bad food, making bad jokes, working out tons-o-puzzles, and never ever seeing the sun. It was great.) There is a vicious rumor that at one time he was an engineering manager at "a large software company in the Pacific Northwest." However, he has long since had the Borg implants removed, and is feeling just fine now.

Yahn Bernier - Software Development Engineer
Yahn was an Atlanta patent lawyer with a degree in chemistry from Harvard. So obviously he ended up in Seattle developing computer games. He taught himself to program at the age of 12 and, more recently, developed what we at Valve have called "that other level editor," BSP. Now that he's getting paid to make games, he figures he'll practice law in his spare time (little does he know). Yahn worked on Half-Life's multiplayer code, and is currently hard at work on Team Fortress 2. His favorite phrase, when imbibing too freely, is "Yucca will assimilate you."

Ken Birdwell - Senior Software Development Engineer
Ken has contributed to a wide range of projects in the last 15 years. These include in-circuit emulators (CodeTap), 3D surface reconstruction (Surfgen), 3D prosthetics design tools (Shapemaker), and satellite networking (Microsoft's Broadcast PC). He also wrote one of the first graphical shells for multiplayer on-line games for Compuserve's Sniper. Oddly enough, Ken has a BFA from Evergreen State University, where he studied painting, photography, and animation. Ken designed and implemented the skeletal animation system and many other engine components for Half-Life.

Steve Bond - Game Designer/Engineer
Having made the great trek westward from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Steve is responsible for much of Half-Life's sophisticated monster and entity behaviors, of which the squad-level AI is his favorite. Steve worked with John Guthrie on several projects that demonstrated the power and flexibility of the QuakeC development environment, which caught John Carmack's attention, who in turn referred him to us. Before that, Steve worked at a local Internet service provider and delivered pizza, a fact that we rarely let him forget, even in his corporate bio.

Charlie Brown - Software Developer
Charlie earned his reputation within the gaming industry while working for 3Dfx Interactive and later Ritual. A Ft. Walton Beach, Florida native, Charlie graduated from the University of Florida in the summer of 1994 and then headed for California and 3Dfx. His responsibilities there included developer support, ports of products to hardware, sample code and simple demos, and ultimately working with 3Dfx Developer Relations managing the engineering game porting effort. After a 2-year stint, Charlie left 3Dfx with college-friend Gary McTaggart to create the Uber(tm) Engine at Ritual Entertainment in Dallas, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Charlie and Gary left Ritual to start their own company. Valve subsequently contacted Charlie (and his friend Gary) with an offer "they couldn't refuse."

Dario Casali - Level Designer
Joining Valve from England, Dario is a world-famous level designer. His work includes some of the most popular deathmatch levels on the Internet, as well as Final Doom, published by id Software.

Mike Dussault - Software Developer
MikeD comes from Monolith Productions where he was the lead engineer on Lithtech1 and Lithtech2 and worked on Shogo, NOLF and Blood2. Previous to that, he worked at Zombie on a game called Locus. He came to Valve because it is a mecca for innovative research and development. So far he's having a great time working on new technology. In his spare time, he plays guitar and piano, writes code, reads, writes code, hikes, writes code, attends punk shows, and cooks.

John Cook - Software Development Engineer
Formerly of Team Fortress software, John is lead programmer on the Team Fortress 2 project. Before that, John studied computer science at RMIT in Australia. John is apparently still suffering jetlag from the move to Seattle, as he doesn't seem to be able to make it in to work until past noon.

Lia Corrado - Administrative Assistant

Dhabih Eng - Artist (pronounced ZA-bee)
Dhabih, who's been playing games since he was six years old, has a degree in Interdisciplinary Art from the University of Washington. He started making a name for himself by doing freelance design work for gaming magazines (Electronic Gaming Monthly, Official Playstation Magazine, PC Gaming World) while still in school. Dhabih has also done web design and worked on the Quake2 TC pack "Zaero" from Team Evolve. He started at Valve by doing freelance work in mid-1998, and signed on full-time in early February of this year. Dhabih is truly a world citizen, having grown up in six different countries (Australia, Macau, Canada, China, Taiwan, and the USA). You can find out more about Dhabih and check out some of his work by visiting his website, www.sijun.com

Chris Grinstead - Operations and Facilities Manager
Chris is another veteran of the Microsoft machine with nearly 8 years under his belt at the software behemoth. He joins us as our "Jack-of-all-trades" person and is responsible for managing the equipment and infrastructure that keeps the Valve team working. This includes the maintaining the LAN, Internet connectivity, and phone system. He also handles equipment procurement, setup, and delivery, plus office moves, space planning parts ordering, etc. We let him out for exercise 15 minutes per day and feed him regularly.

John Guthrie - Game and Level Designer
Along with Steve Bond, John started the influential and popular Internet gaming site, Quake Command. John was also the co-creator of Quake Airplane and Quake Kart and constructed many of the chambers and corridors in the Black Mesa Research Center.

Monica Harrington - Director of Business Development
Monica has been in the software business for fourteen years, eleven of them at Microsoft, where she was most recently a senior marketing manager in the Interactive Media Group. At the time Mike and Gabe decided to start Valve, Monica had just taken a job as the group marketing manager for Microsoft's consumer software businesses, including games. She decided to change jobs so she could continue to pump Mike for inside information on head crabs, houndeyes, and alien slaves. Monica's maiden name is Harrington. She claims Mike changed his name.

Erik Johnson - Shipping Manager
Erik began his career as a shoe salesman and later moved up to selling used cars. Deciding that the car business wasn’t for him either, he took a job with Sierra Online in the QA department. As one of Sierra’s testers for Half-Life, Erik spent a lot of time over at the Valve offices, and was eventually offered a job with Valve as shipping manager. Erik’s responsibilities include localization, testing, managing the build process, creating demos, and shipping products.

Chuck Jones - Illustrator/3D Artist
Chuck joins Valve from Apogee/3D Realms where he was an artist and animator for Duke Nukem 3D, Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior and, most recently, the Duke Nukem Plutonium Pack. Formerly a tattoo artist, Chuck tagged Jerry Cantrell of rock group Alice In Chains long before he created the space aliens who invaded Los Angeles.

Marc Laidlaw - Writer/Game Designer
Marc Laidlaw is the author of half a dozen strange novels, including Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala. He is also the person most responsible for making sure the edgy and intense Half-Life storyline worked in the game. While writing a cover-story about Quake for Wired Magazine, he determined that level designers had the coolest jobs on earth--although the fact that he'd been working as a legal secretary for 10 years might have warped his perceptions very slightly. Oddly, he refuses to do anyone else's typing.

Randy Lundeen - Level Designer/Graphic Designer
Randy comes to Valve by way of Microsoft, where he worked as an interface designer for the Internet Gaming Zone. Randy designs some of the most unusual and original levels in the company; he also is the most likely person to be pushing the polygon and memory limits of our engine. In his distant past, he was a key staff member at a potato processing plant (his responsibilities including peeling and potato quality oversite).

Gary McTaggart - Software Developer
Gary left the University of Florida in 1995 to pursue a career in programming at 3Dfx Interactive as employee number 11. While there, he created demos that were used to show the potential of Voodoo Graphics hardware. The most notable of these demos are the Valley of Ra and Wizard's Tower. Additionally Gary worked as developer support for other game companies wanting to get the most out of 3dfx's hardware. Gary left 3Dfx with Charlie Brown for a short stint at Ritual Entertainment. After working at Ritual, Gary and Charlie decided to start a new company and do contract work for Electronic Arts. Later, Gary decided that Valve would be the ideal place for him to be able to work on great games and technology without having to worry about the day-to-day operations of a business.

Art Min - Project Manager/Game Designer
Art started his game career at Looking Glass Technologies programming on projects such as System Shock and Terra Nova. He wanted to leave MIT to help finish System Shock but his project manager wouldn't let him quit college one month before graduation (the game eventually shipped four months after graduation). After he'd had enough of the East Coast, Art returned to his homeland of California. There he co-founded the Internet Game/Technology company, Multitude, where he designed and managed the voice-enabled team game, FireTeam. Art doesn't mind the rain and grey skies of the Northwest, he spends all his time in an ice rink chasing a hockey puck.

Dave Riller - Game Designer
Prior to joining Valve, Dave was an active developer in the on-line Quake community, and worked with id Software on the deployment of Quake World. For his day job, Dave was a program designer/analyst at MSI, a Windows software developer located on the East Coast. He also ran their website. Dave has been a beta tester for Doom 2, Hexen, Quake, and Warcraft II. In his virtually non-existent spare time, Dave is a pilot and musician.

David Sawyer - Level Designer
A world traveller as a result of his father's job in the Foreign Service, David comes to Valve from a recent stay in the Washington D.C. area. David became a full employee after proving himself through contract mapmaking work on Team Fortress Classic, and is now pouring himself into Team Fortress 2. Despite a calm exterior, David has become one of Valve's most fearsome and ruthless snipers in Team Fortress Classic, and delights in the cries of "damn you, Ramirez!" that can be heard from nearby offices. He enjoys tormenting Chuck in particular.

David Speyrer - Software Developer
David has a BSEE from Louisiana and six years of experience in network and serial communications software development and project management. PC games have been David's passion since he started programming at the age of 11. David was living and working in Boulder, Colorado, when he played through "Half-Life: Day One." Soon he was packing his belongings and putting his house up for sale. David now says that Valve was about the only thing capable of compelling him to leave Boulder's rock climbing and 300 days of sun per year. An eternal optimist, David is convinced that the sun will come out "any day now" so that he can go climbing.

Jay Stelly - Senior Software Development Engineer
Jay joined Valve from Tetragon where he was lead engineer and 3D engine developer of Virgin's Nanotek Warrior. Before that, he developed titles for Sony Playstation & 3DO. Way before that, he wrote his first computer game (at age 9) and had a game published in a magazine (at age 15). A native of Cajun Country, Jay finds Northwest buildings too hot (what, no air conditioning?) and the food not hot enough.

Harry Teasley - Game Designer/Level Designer/Artist
Harry came to Valve from Shiny Entertainment, where he was working on the upcoming game Wild 9's. Prior to Shiny, Harry was at Williams Entertainment where he was lead artist and designer for PlayStation Doom, and was lead designer for Doom64. Before Williams, Harry worked with Sid Meier at Microprose on Civilization as well as Pirates Gold, among other projects.

Steve Theodore - Game Designer/Animator
Steve Theodore comes to Valve from FASA Interactive in Chicago, where he made BattleMechs (tm) for FASA Interactive's MechCommander and the ill-fated MechWarrior III. He's probably the only animator you'll ever meet with a degree in Roman History and a reading knowledge of ancient Greek. Despite his professorial manner, Steve was a member of Chicago's famous art-rock trio, "The Chimps" and was feared and hated by his former landlady.

Bill Van Buren - Producer/Designer
Like a guest at the dinner party in Bunuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” Bill signed on for a short stint to help ship Half-Life and found himself unable to leave. Bill’s pre-Valve experience includes positions at Starwave and Microsoft where he was responsible for art and design direction, production management, and creating art, animation and the odd bit of music

Robin Walker - Game Designer/Development Engineer
Robin co-wrote the hugely popular Quake mod Team Fortress with John Cook and Ian Caughley, before being assimilated when Valve acquired Team Fortress Software. He's now hard at work on the Team Fortress 2 design and game code, and has no time to answer email, so please don't send him any. Easily identified by the large inflatable kangaroo mounted on his monitor, Robin has no idea how to relax now that his hobby has become his job.

Sarah Walker - Community Liason/Office Manager
Sarah comes to Valve via the biotech industry where she spent countless days in the lab manipulating scientific gibberish into something people could understand. After daydreaming about headcrabs consuming her coworkers, she knew it was time for a change that would bring her closer to the source. She spends her time reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, playing games, pondering mancala stragegy, and discussing poetry with her Hermit crabs Leto and Piter. And if Chuck comes at her with that dang crowbar *one more time*, he's going to have a little visit from her nerf sniper rifle.

Douglas R. Wood - Animator/Modeler/2D Artist
Doug joined Valve from Apogee/3DRealms where he worked on projects such as Duke Nukem3d, Shadow Warrior, Prey (before everyone left) and the Plutonium/Atomic Edition for Duke. Before 3DRealms, he worked for Origin down in Austin. As far as we know, Doug is the only member of Valve who has ever been a Guardian Angel in New York City. Doug is responsible for many of Half-Life's scripted sequences, including tentacles that pull unsuspecting scientists through the ceiling.