Ken Lightner

1.

Joined the Army right out of high school, where he worked in aviation maintenance with the goal of one day being a fighter pilot—however, he discovered this path didn’t really suit him.

2.

After getting out of the Army, the 1989 Eastern Airlines strike sidelined his aviation work indefinitely, so he went back to college.

3.

Graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in sociology and data analysis, but had no idea what he wanted to do with that.

4.

His first job out of college was working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in data analysis, collecting health statistics for epidemiologists.

5.

Around this time, the IT industry was starting to establish itself as an in-demand market, so he decided to teach himself programming.

6.

To practice his programming skills, he started to make edits to an existing game he liked to play, which sparked his interest in video game design.

7.

To avoid moving to San Francisco to establish himself in the industry, he founded his own Atlanta-based company called Holistic Games, most well-known for creating the game “Mall Tycoon.”

8.

He now works mainly on cell phone games and groundbreaking virtual reality.