Timothy Jenson — President and Chief Executive Officer
As CME’s president and chief executive officer, Tim Jenson is responsible for the company's overall strategic direction and performance. He develops and maintains relationships with CME’s key business partners, and leads strategic initiatives aimed at differentiating CME in the marketplace and accelerating profitable growth. Mr. Jenson joined CME in August 2005.
Prior to joining CME, Mr. Jenson was president and chief executive officer of a strategic and financial consulting company. From 1993 to 2004, Mr. Jenson was employed by a software licensing company holding various positions including chief financial officer and most recently president and chief executive officer.
While in his various roles at the software licensing company, Mr. Jenson is noted for strengthening operations and positioning the company for future success. He set in place appropriate strategic positioning, improved capital structure, established excellent financial systems and controls, financially positioned the company for future growth and returned it to sustained profitability. Prior to joining the software licensing company, Mr. Jenson held positions with two major U.S. banks.
Mr. Jenson is a member of the Financial Executives Institute and the American Management Association. He earned both a B.A. in business management and an MBA in finance from Brigham Young University.
Joseph Ybarra — Senior Vice President of Strategic Operations
Joe Ybarra is an industry veteran with an extensive list of accomplishments. Mr. Ybarra will continue his legacy with Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment as the senior vice president of strategic operations by securing major business partnerships, providing strategic leadership for Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and representing the company as a “thought leader” at industry events.
As one of the founding members of Electronic Arts, he pioneered many of the now standard methods of game production and game company management, co-inventing the “Producer” role in game development. Mr. Ybarra has produced more than 50 computer and videogame titles, including the hall of fame titles Bard’s Tale, M.U.L.E., Starflight and Wasteland. He also has produced and directed MMOs including Shadow of Yserbius, Shadowbane, and The Matrix Online.
Mr. Ybarra also has extensive experience marketing products worldwide, handling licensed material and managing business development with third party developers. He has also been involved in the due diligence and acquisition of three software development companies including corporations in both Europe and Japan.
Mr. Ybarra studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology as a double major in math and physics.
Rodney Nakamoto – Senior Vice President of Product Development /Studio Head
Rod Nakamoto, senior vice president of product development, oversees Superstition Studios, the Stargate Worlds studio and Handcranked Games studio.
Mr. Nakamoto’s accomplishments span more than 25 years and include developing one of the first synthesized sound cards for the Apple II computer and one of the first sound cards for the IBM PC. Mr. Nakamoto has worked with industry leading companies including Electronic Arts, Activision, Sierra Online, Disney and Sega of America.
Among his videogame credits are titles including Wing Commander Prophecy, Eternal Champions, NASCAR 2002 and 2003 and Empire Earth I and II. Mr. Nakamoto graduated cum laude from Cal State Northridge with a B.A. in Art. He has a M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in sculpture.
Roger Piskulick — Vice President of Finance
Roger Piskulick, an 11-year veteran of public accounting with large and small companies, joined CME in March as vice president of finance.
Most of his public accounting career was spent with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, formerly Coopers & Lybrand, LLC, where he worked as a senior audit manager. Following PWC, Mr. Piskulick joined The Circle K Corporation, one of his clients from PWC that he had just taken public. Mr. Piskulick held several key positions with the Circle K Corporation and its successor company, the Tosco Corporation, including the vice president of finance with Circle K International, the global franchising arm of Tosco.
Mr. Piskulick previously served as CFO for a large glass company then as vice president of finance for Blackboard Inc., a higher education software company.
Mr. Piskulick has served on several boards and professional organizations including serving as treasurer and chairman of the ethics committee of the Arizona Society of Certified Public Accountants. He has a B.S. in accounting from Arizona State University.
Darren Steele — Vice President of Marketing
Darren Steele, a veteran of Microsoft, Ethix Media and Access Software, has joined CME as vice president of marketing.
Mr. Steele brings 12 years of experience responsible for the product marketing for more than 30 consumer software brands. He worked for 7 years as a senior marketer at Microsoft, where he led the marketing efforts for a $200 million Xbox games product line and a $300 million segment of the U.S. Windows XP business.
After leaving Microsoft, Mr. Steele joined Ethix Media, where he led the marketing team of a consumer technology start up company through launch of the web application Homeminders as the vice president of marketing.
Previously, Mr. Steele worked at Access Software, the creators of the bestselling Links™ golf franchise, where he served as the director of marketing prior to the company’s acquisition by Microsoft in 1999.
Mr. Steele earned his M.B.A. from the Brigham Young University Marriott School of Management, and a B.A. in advertising from Brigham Young University.
Michael Rafford – General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Mike Rafford joined CME as general counsel and corporate secretary in January 2007. As the head of the company’s legal department, he is responsible for managing its worldwide legal matters.
Previously, Mr. Rafford was the assistant general counsel at Hypercom Corporation, a publicly-held provider of electronic payment solutions. At Hypercom, Mr. Rafford was responsible for strategic transactions, financings, securities offerings, acquisitions, divestitures, contracts, intellectual property matters, employment law, international legal issues and other corporate and securities matters.
Mr. Rafford began his career at Snell & Wilmer LLP in Phoenix where he was an associate in the firm’s business and finance group.
Mr. Rafford received his J.D. from the Notre Dame Law School and a B.A. in economics from the University of Notre Dame.
Dan Elggren — Studio Head, Stargate Worlds
Dan Elggren, Stargate Worlds’ studio head, is an experienced game designer, a Stargate enthusiast and fan of MMO videogames.
Mr. Elggren began his career in videogames as a game tester. Since then he has worked as a project manager at Engineering Animation, Inc. and as a producer at GT Interactive before spending several years working on internet software development. In 2001, Mr. Elggren joined Electronic Arts’ Westwood Studios as development director. Among the titles developed by Mr. Elggren are several Field & Stream hunting titles, three Medal of Honor games and Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour.
Mr. Elggren received his B.S. in Information Systems and Business from the University of Phoenix in 2000 and an A.S. in Computer Science from the L.D.S. Business College.
James Jones — Vice President/Studio Head
James Jones is vice president/studio head for CME’s newest and as yet unnamed development studio.
Prior to joining CME, Mr. Jones was executive producer at Turbine, Inc. where he helped lead the Lord of the Rings Online and the British Academy Award-winning Dungeons & Dragons Online franchises through two of the most successful MMO launches in history. Mr. Jones helped craft and build the company’s project management and studio operations departments that were responsible for orchestrating all Turbine product launches.
Prior to joining Turbine, Mr. Jones was president, chief operating officer and an original founder of early MMO developer Artifact Entertainment. At Artifact, he also served as executive producer on Horizons: Empire of Istaria, an MMO that was published by Atari in 2003.
Prior to Artifact, Mr. Jones was co-founder of YP Corp. and president and CTO of its technology subsidiary. At YP Corp. he helped build the company from scratch to sustained profitability.
Mr. Jones studied chemistry at Arizona State University.
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