The Architect

Jerald's architecture career began while still studying at the University of Houston, a school where he graduated as class valedictorian of the College of Architecture's 1986 undergraduate class. Licensed as an architect in 1990, he was an early user of the PC to produce architectural designs, working drawings, and 3D renderings on projects for Compaq Computer Corporation, Time Warner Communications, and a number of restaurants, churches, and small businesses.

For its 50th anniversary in 1995, the University of Houston College of Architecture selected Jerald as one of its 50 most outstanding graduates and elected him to its Hall of Fame.

The Computer Animator

Beginning in the late 1980s, Jerald was an early experimenter in using desktop software to present 3-dimensional renderings and animation of his firm's architectural design projects. As an original alpha tester for 3DStudio in 1990, Jerald was able to leverage these skills to create a series of award-winning animation pieces for clients, film festivals, and television. Back in the early days of computer animation, an artist often did everything from storyboarding to modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, and rendering.

Jerald's work was featured on Autodesk showreels, was written about in local news publications, and showed up in television commercials. Many pieces took top honors in international competitions such as Worldfest, the CADDIE Awards, and the Telly Awards.

Designer of Web Sites

Back in the days of long-forgotten Compuserve, Jerald was designing web sites for businesses. Clients had their business cards, fax machines, and figured they needed websites next. It didn't take long to see the opportunities presented by the web to create a better way to communicate with a broader audience.

Jerald and his team went straight to work building websites for wide variety of clients, delivering custom-built content management systems, online community solutions, and higher rankings in search engines. All of this was wrapped in carefully crafted layouts with designs tailored to client brands.

Working with Health Researchers

So, what is an architect/animator/web guy doing in the field of health research? Well, it's a long story, but to creative people it makes perfect sense. What does an architect do? He analyzes a need and designs a solution based on a million variables. Same thing here.

The challenge was to create entertaining experiences for kids that delivers a message about health; a message that most kids didn't want to hear. The results were some very cool projects, many of which won design and animation awards for the teams involved.

The Entrepreneur

The early days of the web lit an entrepreneurial fire in Jerald, one that spurred him to create a series of Internet start-ups. His creative approach to building online properties and brands continually drives him from one start-up to the next.

One of Jerald 's start-ups was Playnormous, an online community where health games are used to help kids stay healthy. Hard work from a talented team transformed his brainchild into a Games for Health leader.

More recently, Jerald has been volunteering his time to Houston's creative and start-up communities as a mentor, advisor, and board member.

• 3 Day Startup: Panelist at UH Bauer College of Business
• Animate Houston: Co-Founder
• City of Houston Hackathon: Judge
• GroundUP Houston: Founder and Organizer
• Only in Houston: Board Member
• Houston Startup Weekend: Co-Organizer and Venue Host
• University of Houston RED Labs: Panelist
• University of Houston Cougar Pitch: Judge