Thaddeus entered the world of hobbyist game development in 1997, with the game Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. From Jedi Knight, he shifted to the Half-Life community, where he participated in a few abandoned Half-Life projects. After working with a mod team, whose leader lost the source code following a hard drive crash in 2006, he began to brainstorm ways to help others organize projects.
Due to the easy to use features and a visual scripting system called Blueprints in the Unreal Engine 4, Tad migrated from Valve Software’s Half-Life 2 community in 2014 to Epic Software’s game engine. He encouraged his team at Iowa State University to work with the engine for a class project. It worked well for a rapid prototype which was playable within two semesters. He is Currently working on a few Unreal Engine 4 titles, with the intent to release for free to the community as a learning tool.
He has a BA in Political Science and a Minor in Entrepreneurship from Iowa State University. While attending Iowa State, he participated in the game development lab, cyber defense competitions, and was president of the Russian Club. He currently works in IT for an asset recovery company, which deals with the resale of corporate IT assets. He has been employed there for almost ten years, and also does freelance volunteering in his free time.
Since childhood, Thaddeus has suffered from Crohn’s Disease, which is an autoimmune disease of the intestines. He has had two small bowel resections and, as a result, is health conscious of his diet. His experiences with an autoimmune disease has opened his mind to the natural health movements and how much food impacts one’s health.
He is a licensed skydiver with the United States Parachute association and casually jumps with the Des Moines Skydivers out of Winterset, Iowa. In his free time, he enjoys reading about geopolitical events, fringe science, and economics. He is also interested in foreign languages, technology, hiking, ice skating, and alternative viewpoints.
