BLAINE GRABOYES
Founder GameCo | Co-Founder The Gamer Agency
Senior Casino Gaming Advisor
Blaine is an Award-winning Executive Producer and Game Designer with over twenty years’ experience creating digital entertainment, having produced thousands of projects for world-renowned entertainment, corporate, and fine arts clients, including DreamWorks, Mattel, 4mm Games, Sony Pictures, Disney, WeeWorld, Nickelodeon, Rinksters, LeapFrog, DIRECTV, Warner Bros., The Guggenheim and Whitney Museums, Nam June Paik, and Yoko Ono.
Blaine is well known to collaborate with entrepreneurs and executives to launch startups, create digital products, and reach new audiences producing video games, social and mobile apps, entertainment properties and fan communities. He has a high level of expertise developing business plans, financial models, game design / product requirement documents, and stunning pitch decks for innovative projects and companies.
Over the years, his work has been recognized with numerous awards including: RIAA Platinum Sales (Melissa Etheridge’s Live...and Alone), IGN Editor’s Choice Award (The DC Video Deluxe Edition UMD) plus recognition for best new software product (ActiveDVD™), and best game play (Madagascar Animal Trivia DVD Game).
He is an active member of the Producers Guild Of America (PGA) serving as a Member-At-Large for the PGA East Executive Committee, a Delegate of the New Media Council Board, and co-chair of the Guild’s inaugural Produced By: New York conference at Time Warner Center on October 25, 2014.
SHAWN DENNIS
Senior Marketing Advisor
Shawn has been a Brand President, CMO and Strategic Business Leader with more than 30 years of spearheading strategies, steering enterprise-wide initiatives, and directing innovations that position major global brands. Currently President of GoldieBlox and veteran of such iconic brands as the NFL, DreamWorks, Mattel’s American Girl, Dell, MasterCard, and Universal Studios, responsible for driving profitable, sustainable growth.
Shawn’s background includes successful experience defining business priorities, championing corporate mission, and creating synergies between brand assets to build customer relationships and loyalty. She has pioneered explosive retail growth, the launch of new business units and integration of content and storytelling to build customer engagement.
STEVE BATZER
Senior Business Advisor
Steve has had a fifty-year career in the insurance and international business consulting
Community leader, successful business person, gaming, hospitality and entertainment expert – all describe Hughes Center Steering Committee Member Steve Batzer.
Mr. Batzer has a long history of service to the community and philanthropic organizations. He has served as a Board Member and Chair of The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, the AtlantiCare Foundation, and the Jewish Community Center of Margate. He also serves on a variety of different boards that include the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, the Atlantic County Economic Development Advisory Commission, the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia, the Global Interdependence Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1988, New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean appointed Mr. Batzer as Chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Gambling.
Under his leadership, the commission was responsible for developing a study and issuing a report on the social and economic impact of gaming on the population of New Jersey.
Mr. Batzer earned his undergraduate and MBA degrees from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Coast Guard. He served on active duty for four years and in the active reserves for another ten, eventually attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander.