Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Justin Smith, CEO
Justin is our charismatic Jedi master. With a Doctorate in Asian Studies and 20 years of teaching mixed martial arts, Justin brings a wealth of unique knowledge and guiding values to the team.
Justin is an avid geek for RPG, tabletop, and videogames with experience as an Executive Producer at Osbourne Media. As a social chameleon with contagious positivity, Justin is Marshmallow Jetpack's number one fan and is excited to lend his experience in business development, community, and production at Marshmallow Jetpack.
James Turner, COO
James is a games industry veteran with experience in Production, Project Management, Business Development, and QA. From the BAFTA award-winning "Tearaway" to the Apple Top 10 Title "The Trail" and beyond, James has a deep passion for independent development and unique projects.
His spare time is spent playing video games, board games, and tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons to create stories with amazing people. As a junkie for social games and giant mechs, he is constantly thankful to be surrounded by such fantastic, talented colleagues and friends at Marshmallow Jetpack!
Russ Pippin, Game Director
Forged in the fires of TCG competition in both MTG and Vs System, it was at a tournament in Anaheim, California where Russ was persuaded to join Upper Deck Entertainment to work on organized play and game design. Most recently, Russ worked at Blizzard Entertainment for 13 years on the Battle.net platform as a Senior Product Manager. Russ lends his wisdom in game design, competitive balance, scalable infrastructure, and production to the Marshmallow Jetpack team to foster a creative and collaborative environment where everyone can thrive.
Rusty Lopez, Systems Engineer and Integration
Rusty is a Software Architect with 15 years of experience in enterprise web services design. During that time, he has gathered a wealth of software design secrets and principles to build scalable, robust, highly available systems.
Rich, interactive gaming experiences inspired Rusty to start programming. It was his goal from the start of his career to land a job at the biggest and best name in gaming. In 2014 Rusty realized that dream when he was offered a position at Blizzard Entertainment where he learned from the best minds in the industry.
Rusty left Blizzard in 2019 to return home to the snow-capped mountains of Utah. Only now, 2 years later, with this team, and this project, has he found something that rivals in terms of promise and excitement.