Team

Dr. Ron Hornbaker, Founder and CEO A veterinarian by education, Ron caught the tech entrepreneur bug while creating software to run his small animal clinic in Kansas City in the early 90s. Since then, he has enjoyed creating consumer internet startups, most notably BookCrossing.com. FooPets and FooMojo represent Ron’s returning to his love of animals, which started as a very young child with 13 cats, each known by name. He is owned by dogs Sydney, an Australian Shepherd, and Leica, a German Shorthair Pointer.

Scott Sorochak, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer Scott is a 20-year Bay Area sales veteran, and has led and raised capital with several companies, including Dialog Information Systems, Netcom, Excite@Home, Casecentral, Propel Software, Adteractive and BookCrossing. Scott’s primary role at Foomojo is to bring in the dough. If he doesn’t, we all will have a very long wait in the unemployment line, so there’s no pressure at all. Scott’s pet history dates back to college in his home town of Boston, where he grew up with four pirranah, a zillion goldfish (which made the piranha rather large), an iguana, and most recently a 14 year old Siberian Husky, Sasha, who just recently passed away. His new Siberian Husky, Nikki, is a rambuncious two year old who loves to chew on irrigation drips, drywall and Birkenstocks.

Eugene Otto, Founding Engineer Eugene has worked on everything from tweaking font colors on FooMojo’s website to scaling our back-end to support over three million Facebook users! He has a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Virginia (Wa-hoo-wa!), and enjoys playing tag with his overfed cat, Buttercup.

Craig Aldred, Founding Senior Artist Craig was always a computer geek and grew up in a creative household with many pets. Inspired by pioneering movies such as ‘Toy Story,’ he attended the Academy of Art School where he learned 3D animation. Craig then applied his knowledge for children’s software and gaming companies with several console labels, Disney and Leggo before finding the perfect fit – FooMojo. Blending technical and artistic skills with his love for animals, Craig enjoys looking to his own dogs Hammie and Guinnie for inspiration as he captures the essence of dogs in the most detailed, realistic sense. Craig views FooMojo’s user community as part of the creation and appreciates the instant feedback and user-generated content, as we continue to build a safe and wholesome social networking site for people of all ages.

Mike Trujillo, Founding Artist So far, Mike has lived in Spain, England, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico and currently San Francisco, California. Throughout his life, he’s been an artist working in many mediums including oil painting, illustration, graphic design, and 3D and computer graphics. Mike graduated from Phoenix Institute of Technology’s art program and studied fine art at the University of New Mexico. He has done computer graphic work for ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Adult Swim,’ before creating one of the first prototypes of “Pokey”(FooMojo’s first virtual pet). Mike enjoys playing guitar and bass and considers himself a cat person, although he loves all animals. Mike is proud to be a part of a philanthropic company, creating meaningful and entertaining product that help connect people to animals.

David Behrens, Computer Graphics Supervisor It was in his calculus class at the University of Minnesota when David decided to change his career from the medical field to art. “Calculus and organic chemistry sucked…art was easier!” With that, David moved to Orlando, Florida where he attended Full Sail, a private multimedia and creative entertainment university. Immediately after graduation he joined the character rigging and modeling team at Pixar Animation Studios working in the shorts department and on the movie “The Incredibles.” David moved on to Tippett Studio where he worked on notable projects, including “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” “Enchanted,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “Constantine,” and “Hell Boy.” David saw opportunity with FooMojo where he enjoys expanding his technical and artistic experience, involving himself in all aspects of computer graphics. The nearby marina and bay provide for some epic kiteboarding as well!

Ryan Hood, Lead Animator Ryan explored various mediums growing up as a budding artist. It was at San Francisco Art Academy where he honed his creativity and detailed eye toward animation. Since then, Ryan has garnered experience animating at ILM, Lucas Arts, and Tippett Studio where he was a team lead. Ryan is happy to be leading a talented team of animators at FooMojo, and looks forward to bringing new and fresh ideas to FooPets.com.

Kate Clark, Catalyst / Community Manager A farm girl at heart, Kate grew up on a ranch with a large variety of animals. She attended U.C. Davis where she studied International Relations and even milked a cow in the quad – which was not unusual for Kate. She stumbled upon FooMojo’s Facebook application and immediately started to provide feedback on the product. Seen as a perfect fit for the company, Kate was added to the team and has since been the social glue for the company and the community. She is thrilled to be surrounded by creative, like-minded people, and is proud that FooMojo gives back to the community helping animals in need. Kate also loves that she can take her dog Party to work every day.

Hilda Karugabira, Animator Hilda has always appreciated art and has been drawing every since she can remember. She attended The Art Institute of Illinois and The Art Institute of California at San Francisco where she fell in love with 3D, describing it as “art that moves.” She loves real animals and enjoys animating them and making FooPets as realistic, interactive and engaging as possible.

Dharmesh Desai, Engineer Upon receiving his B.S. degree in Economics from the University of Bombay, Dharmesh bee-lined to the U.K. where he studied computer programming. He began his career as a developer at financial services firm in New York City with $30 cash, and nothing else. He found a home and snuggled up at night on the bare floor of his room dreaming about his next move. With his first paycheck, he bought a sweet stereo system and continued sleeping on the floor. Dharmesh’s ultimate satisfaction is to conceptualize something and see it through realization. He experienced that with Unisys, gathering end users requirements and learning the intimate details of the Tennessee court system. Six ‘paperless’ applications later, he recommends you not getting in a legal situation there. Dharmesh continued his work developing voice applications and mashing up new technologies. He caught the Web 2.0 bug and is thrilled to be working at a cool company like FooMojo.

Claire Umeda, Sr Marketing Strategist Claire’s passion for precise and elegant marketing is second only to her love for impromptu dance-offs. Her professional genesis as a journalism major gives her a feel for the news beat, a well-honed skill she uses to draw and influence attention. Claire is dedicated to using her powers to further the joys of pet ownership; testing, iterating, churning, eating, and rewriting, until things are just right. When Claire brings her work home, her daughter giggles, claps and is excited to be the best focus group a mother could ask for.

Mila Golynskaia, Modeler Mila truly enjoys what she does. With a passion for art and science, problem solving and building things – Mila feels fortunate to be able to work at FooMojo. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Mila moved to Silicon Valley where she stumbled upon computers. A fast study, Mila taught herself computer graphics and 3D animation. Mila has worked for 3DO, PDI, and ILM before bringing her dedication and talents to FooMojo.

Alex Wells, Render Wrangler Alex’s computer skills runs the gamut, from programming to web design and animation. A natural at math, Alex studied actuarial statistics in Santa Barbara but missed the artistic component of computers. He left the beaches and moved to Northern California to attend Expression College in Emeryville where he received a B.S. in Animation and Visual Effects. After graduating, Alex found FooMojo where he spends his days and nights watching over the render farm, troubleshooting as necessary. Alex enjoys seeing each aspect of these creatures come together and forming a cute puppy or kitten – essentially watching them come to life.

Ryan Long, Character Technical Director Ryan earned a B.A. in Multimedia Design at North Carolina State University. He worked in corporate graphic design but grew more interested in computer graphics and animation. He moved to the Bay Area to attend the San Francisco Academy of Art where he received an M.F.A in Computer Animation. During and after the academy, Ryan worked in computer graphics at Fluid Animation for many clients, including Adult Swim, Oracle, GMC, and more. With an increasing interest of cross platform social media applications and high-end graphics, Ryan is thrilled to be a part of the FooMojo team.

Bart Yeary, Director of Product Bart Yeary has been working in the interactive design space for over ten years, with a variety of leading consumer brands, including Kelloggs, U.S. Army, Kraft, Rayovac, MTV and a number of major entertainment clients. Bart joined Foxsports.com as a web designer in 1999 where he honed his skills and a designer and Flash developer. Bart was an early pioneer in the multi-user web space leading development and design for a variety of avatar based community initiatives. As a result he was hired as content manager/art director for Diesel S.p.A. in Molvena Italy, where he designed the multi-user casual game site at Protokid.com. He then returned to Chicago to join Avenue-A/Razorfish, as a senior art director where he led the design and development of Postopia.com for Post cereals. More recently he founded Identity Play Inc. where he led the design and development of Faketown.com a virtual world for creative collaboration and gameplay.

Kevin Rugg, Engineer Kevin grew up in Montana and moved to California to attend Stanford University where he received a B.S. in Computer Science. He has consulted and worked as a programmer for several different industries including pharmaceutical, shipping, B2B infrastructure, IT and gaming. Kevin’s four-year-old daughter Isabelle is looking forward to turning five, when she will be able to adopt a real live dog. She is enjoying the experience of learning how to care for dogs through her FooPet Labrador, Thunder, every day.

Jim Gross, Director of Finance Jim, a predominantly bi-pedal human male, is originally from Texas through some bizarre accident of geography or great cosmic joke. There he learned to eat BBQ, endure tremendous heat waves, and recover from nasty bites imposed by ants and the occasional snake. Having learned enough about such things, Jim eventually made his way to San Francisco where he now scales the finance departments and operations of fast-growing start-up companies in the game and entertainment space, including Atom Films, Shockwave, and Linden Lab. In those rare fleeting moments when he’s not in excel he’s actually rather active and enjoys sailing, surfing, snowboarding and other such things like being a human pillow and chew toy for Wookie, his English Mastiff pup, who’s cute as heck and growing scarily fast.