This last year has been incredibly good to us in the area that matters most in a company- the people. We’ve been very fortunate to have some incredibly talented people join us this year. All of them, as you would imagine in a small company, have had a major impact on our business. Let me introduce them in chronological hiring order….

Drew Scanlon (February 2009)

“Intern Needed for T-Shirt Shipping & Video Work” was the title of our Craigslist ad that Drew answered in December 2008. Graduating from UCLA with a degree in graphic design and having a solid portfolio site got him in the door, but it was everything he did afterwards the made it a requirement to hire Drew as the first full-time video person for Giant Bomb last year.

Sounds corny, but you can tell a lot about a person by how much responsibility someone takes for the most menial tasks. Whether schlepping t-shirts to the post office, or pulling all nighters for E3 coverage, Drew is always the consummate professional. More important, he’s damn good at what he does. With Vinny, Drew has helped make our video content stick out in a over-saturated web video world.

As is standard at Whiskey, Drew has had his share of time in front of the camera as well. I struggled with which one to show here… His debut on The Mythic Coke Challenge or his Best Games of 2009. I’ll go with the latter…

Daniel Miesner (June 2009)

We were also lucky enough to get Daniel from a Craigslist ad as well. He applied for a data internship back when he was still in school, and worked with us every break he had until he graduated this year. Daniel is now our marketing manager, handling everything from ad sales support to dealing with movie studios and comic book publishers for promotions. He’s also become a bit of an expert at how our Google rankings change based off changes in our publishing platform, and could probably teach courses on Google Analytics. And he learned this all on his own.

Dan’s also done his share of work in front of the camera, which we will highlight in the “rap” video below.

Sara Lima (July 2009)

From the day we first saw Sara shooting comic book reviews from her house and posting them to Comic Vine, we knew we had to hire Sara. She was already a big contributor to the Comic Vine community before we asked Sara and her sister to cover ComicCon NYC last year. Little did we know that she would score the best interviews of the whole conference armed with nothing more than her sister and a cheap video camera. More important, she acted like she had been doing this all her life!

Next thing you know we’ve convinced Sara to move out to Sausalito from Connecticut to work with Tony on Comic Vine. Since then,  she’s continued to get great interviews at ComicCon San Diego, create all kinds of alter egos, and hang out with Tyrese. She’s also cranking comic book reviews and news like no one’s business.

Kent Carter (August 2009)

When we told people we wanted to hire an experienced, smart sales person who wasn’t a jerk, almost everyone said “You should talk to Kent Carter!”. So we did. Next thing you know, this good natured Virginia gentleman is helping us sale an ad sales strategy that works for our brands and our marketing customers. Having gone on some of these calls with Kent, it is real pleasure to walk in and see him get bear hugs from customers who normally wouldn’t make time for little companies like ours.

With a background that includes GameTrailers and MTV, Kent has brought a tremendous amount of professionalism to the company’s sales efforts. More important, he’s just been great to have around.

Mike Horn (November 2009)

We know Mike back from our CNET/ Gamespot days. For about a year we would say, “you know, we could really us a ‘Mike Horn’ to help us here”, but each time the timing was a bit off. Finally, the timing aligned and within a few weeks of hiring Mike, he dug into the Django templating system and rewrote most of our front end.

Mike has also introduced board games into the office, for which everyone is thankful. Having him in our office has not only upped our tech game, but the chill factor. He’s just a cool character.

Mike’s only been here a few months, but he if you look closely in the Rap video above, you’ll see some of his video work as a back up rap dancer. That kind of work is what we mean by the “challenges of the job”.

Thanks to all these guys for joining the cause this year. We’re lucky to have them.