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Matthew DuPlessieMatthew DuPlessie is founder and CEO of the 5 Wits Companies, with nine attractions in four states, one under construction, and six more planned.
After completing his bachelors in mechanical engineering at MIT, Matthew DuPlessie went to work in South Florida managing specialty design/build projects for major theme parks, museums, and aquariums. Returning to Massachusetts to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School, Matt raised private financing and founded one of the earliest “escape room” style attractions, in Boston in 2004. For the last twelve years, 5 Wits has designed, built, and operated award-winning walk-through “adventures” like Tomb, Espionage, 20,000 Leagues, Drago’s Castle, and Deep Space, enjoyed by well over a million guests. In 2006, Matt formed a second company, 5 Wits Productions Inc., in order to pursue a wide range of design/build work for third party clients, in addition to 5 Wits’ own public venues. The team at 5 Wits Productions specializes in the concept development, detailed design, quality fabrication, and profitable operation of exhibits, attractions, interactive adventures, and group challenges for a variety of public venues, such as the Smithsonian, Blue Man Group, Walt Disney Imagineering, and dozens of science and children’s museums. In addition to his work with the 5 Wits’ Companies, Matt teaches a couple of design classes in the mechanical engineering department at MIT. Matt and his wife Beth live in Stoneham, MA with their three energetic children. |
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Nate MartinNate Martin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Break, the oldest contemporary escape room company based in the United States. Under his leadership, Puzzle Break has opened rooms in its headquarters of Seattle, San Francisco, an upcoming location in New York, the world’s first ever escape rooms aboard cruise ships, and several portable escape game experiences for players around the world. Nate has forged several corporate partnerships over Puzzle Break’s 3 years of operation.
Nate's highly esteemed online posts and interviews about the history of founding, running, and growing Puzzle Break have been the inspiration and roadmap for innumerable escape room owner-operators. In addition, he has provided consulting to escape room companies of all shapes and sizes. He also maintains a blog dedicated to the escape room industry, covering topics from general entrepreneurship to the finer nuances of experience design and everything in between. Prior to Puzzle Break, Nate was a senior software executive at Microsoft and Electronic Arts. He has shipped software used by billions of users as well as some of the most beloved video games of a generation. |
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AJ HughesAJ Hughes has been an escape room owner at Escape Room Tucson www.EscapeRoomTucson.com since 2014. She has designed, created and built all of her escape rooms from the ground up. She also owns www.EscapeRoomGamesForSale.comand has built, designed and created 122 escape rooms all around the world.
Prior to owning an escape room, AJ has owned her own retail business that featured in the Kentucky Derby three years in a row, Miss America Pageant and the Grammy Awards. Coming from an extensive marketing background, AJ has also served as the national marketing director for the third largest company in the world. AJ has a bachelors in marketing and masters in business. AJ is an avid escape room gamer, having played as many as 15 escape rooms in three days. She is also a book collector and has a collection of books that date as far back as the 15th century. |
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Brian WarnerBrian Warner's technical background comes from 18 years as a machinist and machine manufacturer, building multi-million dollar machinery for large beverage corporations, as well as 13 years in the haunted attraction industry, with his company Evilusions, designing and constructing entire attractions. This includes all the CAD drawings, technical systems (air, electric, sound), and all animatronic manufacturing. For the last year, he has been designing and installing escape rooms, from one simple puzzle, to entire rooms and facilites, including the 2d and 3d CAD drawings, and game flow design.
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Melissa EapenMelissa Eapen is the Co-Founder and Director of Business Development of Improbable Escapes and Cross Key Productions & Consulting from Kingston, Ontario. With her educational background in Psychology, Computer Science and Pre-service Firefighter Training & Education, she started her career in property management and then quickly followed her passion for gamification and teaching through play to be on the front line of second generation escape rooms. She is currently expanding her puzzle rooms to a new space that is over 4 times the size of her first location.
During the day you can find her working with local partners to write, and produce historical games all over the city including Kingston City Hall, Fort Henry National Historic Site, St. Lawrence College, the Kingston Public Library, Murney Tower National Historic Site and many others. During the night she collaborates with master electrical designers, contractors, a biochemist, and a world class musician to create all new products for Cross Key Productions. |
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Lisa & David SpiraCreated by an experience designer and a predictive data expert in 2014, RoomEscapeArtist.com publishes well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous escape room reviews, design tips and players tips three times a week. Our mission is to share our love of letting strangers lock us inside giant puzzles and to push the makers of those giant puzzles to create the best experiences they can.
Lisa Spira is an onomastician who turned her lifelong obsession with names into a career as Director of Research and Product Development at Ethnic Technologies. Lisa holds a degree in linguistics from Syracuse University; serves on the Executive Council of the American Name Society; and works as a private baby name consultant. David Spira is an experience strategist with Phase2 who strives for a deeper understanding how things work, and the ways people interact with their world. David holds degrees in communication and history from the University at Buffalo, and a Masters in Communication and Information Sciences from Rutgers. |
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Debra BeardsleyDebra Beardsley has been surrounded by immersive attractions her entire life. After graduating with a BA in Theatre, she stage-managed large scale productions at SeaWorld for three years before finally taking the plunge into NYC theatre. While there, she began stage and production managing for a company called Third Rail Projects, whose primary mission is to create incredible site-specific immersive projects that entertain and enlighten through beauty. She is the originating stage and production manager for their signature show, Then She Fell, which allows guests to interact with the characters of Alice in Wonderland and discover untold stories about the world of Lewis Carroll.
Six years of work in immersive theatre and a lifetime of entertainment work gave her a passion for storytelling and guest experience. Combined with her geeky passion for gaming and role play, she developed It’s A Trap~A Room Escape Adventure with her husband, Alex, near Orlando that is extremely well received and a one-of-a-kind concept for the area. They recently launched the first of many theatrical gaming experiences that utilize escape game puzzle concepts with site-specific immersion called Kosmic Kidz, taking place in a public park in Downtown Orlando. |
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Dave FerrierDave Ferrier is an owner, game writer and staff supervisor at Trapped PHL escape room. He has become an escape room industry "go to guy" on booking systems and running Groupon / Living Social campaigns. Dave is also a trainer, Marine Corps veteran and professional actor, with dozens of credits including House of Cards, VEEP, Investigation Discovery, The Travel Channel and various major motion pictures.
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Shawn FischteinCo-founder and operator of Escape Games Canada and the face behind www.escapegamespro.com, Shawn and his team have dedicated themselves to breaking down the science of Escape Games and Escape Rooms. Shawn has a background in aerospace engineering coupled with a professional background in financial and customer data analytics with game theory applications. This combination lends well to the fabrication, design, and operation of escape room facilities.
Shawn became familiar with escape rooms in 2009-2010 while working in Shanghai China as a marketing loyalty analyst. This inevitably led Shawn and his wife back to his home city of Toronto, Canada to design and build the next generation of Escape Rooms. In addition to working with other local owners and keeping Escape Games Canada running in best-of-class quality, Shawn dedicates his time to developing solid games which rely on scientifically tested principles. Focusing on adapting techniques developed in the video game industry over the past 20 years, Shawn and his team are striving to make games more stream-lined, accessible, and most importantly more fun for the players involved. His passion for developing the industry and setting standards of quality is his current prime directive. Shawn also enjoys video games, competitive e-sports, trading card games, and practically anything to do with the gaming industry. This passion comes through if you ever take a visit to Escape Games Canada. |
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Elisabeth GarsonElisabeth Garson is the Owner and Creative Director for Steel Owl Games. Her current escape game, Escape the 1980 has attracted a great deal of press, investor interest and has ultimately spawned the birth of Steel Owl Tech, dedicated to producing one incredible tech prop designed for the escape room industry.
Currently, the Steel Owl team is developing two escape games for a large company in Philadelphia. The details of this endeavor will be released in the spring of 2017. Prior to Steel Owl, Garson worked Advertising and UX (user experience) for 20 years as a Creative Director, with a focus on branding and experience. Her clients included large companies (Comcast, Advanta, The Franklin Mint), medium sized business and start-ups. From craft beer…to cable TV — all of Garson’s creative work explored consumer experience, from the perspective of targeted audience research. This knowledge acted as the primary building block for the Steel Owl business model, including game development, company branding, and puzzles to create player engagement. In addition to her advertising work, Garson created several team-oriented events, and experiences in the Philadelphia area including the sold-out “Dating Game Live” (set up like the 1980s show) and a sold out “Happening Event” where participants purchased tickets to something that was happening (but they didn’t know what it was). She was also the co-creator of an independent short film that created outlandish experiences for unsuspecting deliverymen. She’s the concept founder of The Philadelphia Arts Market, which is still in the process of development, and on-hold for the moment. Over the years, Garson’s endeavors have attracted press from The Philadelphia Inquirer, CBS 3, KYW News Radio, Time Magazine and dozens of others. |
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Paula NorderNEED BIO
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Nicole GinsburgNicole Ginsburg is the co-owner and creator of Escape the Estate, Central New York's first escape room. Nicole holds a degree in marketing from Columbia College and has over 20 years of experience in the performing arts and entertainment industry; almost half of this time has been spent in her role as Production Director for Frightmare Farms, one of the most critically acclaimed haunted attractions in Upstate New York. Nicole introduced the escape room industry to the region by utilizing existing space at the previously-existing haunted attraction. At that time, Nicole was one of very few pioneers attempting this technique.
Escape the Estate, with its theatrically-detailed sets, was a runaway hit. Within a matter of weeks, the Frightmare Farms location had sold out its available bookings for their entire season. Fueled by this success, Nicole and her team opened a second location in just six months, crafting whole-new escape rooms in a shopping mall. Because of her work, Nicole has caught the attention of numerous media outlets in the area. This past December, she was named one of the "9 Most Creative People in Central New York." Soon after, she was featured in an article about women in business, discussing her contributions to the often male-dominated industries of escape rooms and haunted attractions. Nicole has presented at educational institutions, universities, and conferences on topics ranging from young entrepreneurship to surviving a zombie outbreak. |