Shenandoah Studios Leadership Team & Executives

Eric Lee Smith

CEO

as co-founder and CEO of Shenandoah Studio formerly Project Simonsen I am excited to tell you a little about myself Redmond Simonsen and this new game company. I’m a Texan by birth and Philadelphian by choice with a long important stay over in New York City that changed my life. I began playing games as a kid,the usual Monopoly Sorry Easy Money chess Regatta and others but when I discovered Risk I really got interested in games. A couple of years later my younger brother Clayton introduced me to wargames with Jim Dunnigan and Redmond Simonsen’s PanzerBlitz from there I owned 200 by the time I was twenty. At age 21 I went off to proper college after having started my first business if you can call art school proper. I went to Pratt Institute to study photography. Why Pratt Especially since I got a full scholarship to New Mexico Because that’s where Simulations Publications was located They were my favorite game company by far and they had open playtesting on Friday nights. So I went there every Friday night to test games and meet my childhood heros such as Jim Dunnigan Redmond Simonsen Richard Berg David Isby and others. It was lots of fun. I was a good tester and designers began to seek me out to test their games. Then one day after being a tester for about six months I casually asked Brad Hessel if there was a chance I could intern with the company. He gave me a chance virtually on the spot âe“ minimum wage fifteen hours a week.