In May we sent out a call for community members to become involved with Hit Save! in an official way, with roles as board members and CTO.
With the addition of the 4 new team members, we want to extend an incredibly heartfelt THANK YOU to our dear friends Dustin Hubbard and Natalia Portillo, who have helped us grow over these past 4 years, and are now becoming emeritus team members. Dustin was a founding board member and president of the board, and will now continue his focus on the amazing site and community that exists around Gaming Alexandria. Natalia was our CTO, with a heavy focus on data preservation through project Aaru. Again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you both.
We also want to thank everyone who submitted their applications, we're so incredibly lucky to have such an amazing community. Without further ado, here are our new team members!
Ellen Cooper - Board Member
Ellen is a freelance preservationist who aims to rescue and catalog video games by any means possible. In pursuit of this goal, she has dived into a variety of subjects with no prior experience such as wiki management, reverse engineering of mobile phones, and archival research with the Wayback Machine. She is currently focusing on Japanese feature phone preservation.
Rachael Dillon - Board Member
Rachael is a passionate advocate for gaming history preservation and accessibility, leveraging a background as an avid gamer and Masters in both Criminal Justice and Library & Information Services. When not archiving or squirreled away in her home library with her two cats and a cup of tea, she can often be found streaming indie games on Twitch, where she promotes passion projects and community-driven initiatives.
David Swanson - Board Member
David has been gaming since an early age, and has been involved in video game preservation communities in one form or another since his late teens. He believes firmly in the cultural and social importance of the medium and that it is vital that gaming history is preserved for future generations to understand and enjoy. As Hit Save's first UK-based Board member, he has a particular personal interest in and focus on materials relating to British video game history and culture - from preserving software for machines like the Acorn BBC Micro and Archimedes, to documenting the uniquely British gaming magazine culture of the 90s and 00s.
Kevin Stallone - Chief Technology Officer
Kevin is an avid Pokémon game collector and is dedicated to the preservation of video games. Currently an Information and Data Science graduate student at UC Berkeley, he combines his technical expertise with his passion for gaming to ensure that the history and culture of video games are documented and preserved for future generations. His commitment to game preservation reflects his belief in the importance of maintaining access to classic games and their stories.
Give them all a heartfelt welcome!
