The whole career comes back to one question: how do you create an experience someone carries with them after it's over?
It started with film editing and visual effects. Two decades of learning how images, sound, pacing, and story shape what an audience feels. That grew into commercial filmmaking, creative direction, brand storytelling, and eventually founding RetroMotion Creative.
Then the screen wasn't enough. Reviving Venetian Beverages and building the Venetian Soda Lounge moved the same principles into physical space. Hospitality, lighting, music, live entertainment, environmental storytelling, and the very specific work of designing how people feel in a room they're actually standing in.
Original projects like Rufus Hightower, Gingy 9000, and SodaBarVT pushed the idea further, combining fictional worlds with real businesses so guests could participate in the story instead of just watch it.
AI is the newest tool in the kit. Not as a replacement for the human parts, but as a way to prototype faster, sharpen operations, and give the team more capacity to deliver the parts that only humans can. Automate the invisible. Humanize the visible.
One thread across all of it: making experiences that change how someone feels.
Began professional work in film editing and visual effects, contributing to feature films and other screen projects. Learned to control what an audience sees and feels — pacing, illusion, image, and sound.
Expanded into advertising, branded storytelling, and regional media production across commercial, nonprofit, and institutional clients — the beginning of connecting storytelling to real business objectives.
Began taking freelance film work under the RetroMotion name. Incorporated as the current LLC in 2019.
Brought back a heritage Vermont beverage brand connected to family history.
Built and opened a vintage-inspired cocktail and soda lounge in Burlington, Vermont in August 2022.
Created and developed the Rufus Hightower universe, an original adventure IP inspired by 1930s pulp serials, golden-age cinema, tiki culture, occult mystery, and immersive hospitality. Built a transmedia world spanning live events, cocktail menus, video content, interactive experiences, and game concepts, with recurring characters, lore, branded artifacts, and serialized storylines. Designed the IP to function as both entertainment and experiential marketing, connecting audience engagement, hospitality, storytelling, and brand-building into one cohesive creative platform.
Co-created a podcast about AI for everyday people.
Designed and built a web-based interactive mystery and case-file experience.
Built practical AI-powered workflows for video production, content strategy, and business operations.
For collaboration, immersive hospitality projects, AI-forward business development, creative leadership, speaking, or something interesting you're building, the channel is open.
