Tell us a little about yourself. It is well known you are a toy collector, but are you also a Star Wars fan?

I was born in 1978, one year after A New Hope came out. While I don’t have a cognitive memory of this, my parents have told me that they took me to see it when I was 6 months old (fans may recall the film played for well beyond the first year and was released twice before The Empire Strikes Back came out). While my parents’ intention was likely to have a night out themselves, expecting their infant son to probably fall asleep in the theater, apparently I sat on my mother’s lap and stared at the screen practically without blinking for the full 2 hour+. (to the shock of both of my parents!).

Clearly this experience at such a young age took hold and I was hooked from day 1. I remember seeing Empire with my Grandfather and getting scared by Dagobah and asked to leave the theater. But for Jedi, I was old enough to appreciate what was happening and I distinctly remember being excited that there was a "new Star Wars film" coming out and going to see it with my best friend Shawn.

I was (and am) a HUGE fan of the vintage Kenner line. I grew up in Connecticut which meant we actually had "weather", so every winter my backyard was literally Hoth and the forest behind my house was Endor. I used to lose figures during the winter in snow battles only to find them during the spring. I specifically remember I lost my General Veers figure one winter (okay, AT-AT Commander…) and my father found him months later while mowing the lawn. He was that close to being shredded!

Some other vintage favorites were the Hoth Rebel Trooper, Admiral Ackbar, FX7 and the AT-AT which my parents called "Scott’s pet dog". I was also a HUGE fan of the Proof of Purchase mail away system and fondly remember running to the mail box every day waiting and waiting for those white coffin boxes to show up. There wasn’t anything more thrilling then getting a new Star Wars figure in the mail!

As a kid I thought I had ALL of the figures, it wasn’t until Jr. High when I got an amazing book called Star Wars: from Concept to Collectable that I realized how few of the figures I had! Since then I have filled in a lot of the blanks, and in 1995 when Hasbro relaunched the 3 ¾ line I was in at day 1. I would go "toy hunting" almost every day before school and on the weekends. I was so excited when wave 2 hit and I scored a Boba Fett with the half circles at retail, of course not realizing at the time that this was destined to become one of the first hard to find variants (I ripped all of my figs out of the package). Fast forward to today, I proudly have EVERY single Classic Trilogy 3 ¾ figure released since 1995 (with many prequel and expanded Universe figures as well, but the Classic Trilogy toys are my true love and where I am an obsessive completionist). I keep them all in 60 drawer tool drawers (i.e. used for nails and screws), with each drawer containing the figure and accessories. I think I’m up to 15 chests at this point and growing. Each drawer is labeled with the figures name (P Touch Brother Label maker!) making my cases look a lot like the labels that came with the vintage Vader and C-3PO cases. (both of which I still have and house my vintage collection).

The fact that I am now working on Star Wars action figures (in an all new scale!) at JAKKS is literally a dream come true. I’ve only been at JAKKS for a few months but have already helped select several new characters and figure executions. I feel like a kid all over again!

We know you can’t talk about The Force Awakens products JAKKS Pacific will be producing, but are you able to comment on what the promotion time line is? Toy Fair is most likely out of the question, but should we expect to see something related to your TFA products at Celebration Anaheim or San Diego Comic-Con?

Actually you pretty much answered the question in the first sentence. I can’t talk about The Force Awakens.

The existing scales that JAKKS has on store shelves are moving. The price point is incredible and the perceived value is quantifiable. With your experience working at Mattel, where you were able to offer an incredible product at a very decent price point, are you able to expand upon the designs we’ve seen over the last year?

Absolutely! You will definitely see a huge expansion of JAKKS Star Wars offerings in all of the JAKKS large scales such as 20-inch and 31-inch, and maybe even more. With 31-inch you will see a focus on the top talent and the most well known heroes and villains. In 20-inch is where you will really see variety. While the retail line will focus on well know characters for kids, convention and online retailers and distribution will allow JAKKS to expand our selection and really offer a full galaxy of product, including product aimed at the adult collector.

Having the opportunity to work on Star Wars action figures was a huge reason I finally said "yes" to heading over to JAKKS Pacific. As the new Director of Boys Action Play and Collector I feel incredibly honored to work on this brand. As I noted above, I’ve been collecting Star Wars toys my entire life (and I am a HUGE fan of Rebelscum. It’s pretty much my go-to morning news site for the latest in Star Wars toy info!

Shucks, thank you kind sir! You alluded to new scale... Can you tell us more and will there beadded articulation in this and other Star Wars scales?

Yes, yes and yes! The retail line will still focus on kid product with limited articulation, but with conventions and online distribution JAKKS will have the opportunity to expand not only our character selection but features, deco and details as well.

JAKKS Pacific has kept all their action figure lines consistent across all their licenses, which of course you also did with your Matty Collector lines. Moving forward are there any other calling cards we could see in these lines?


As an action figure collector myself I’m definitely in the camp of consistency. No one wants to start collecting a line without, shall we say, the promise of a "full shelf". Having consistency year-to-year (in terms of scale and articulation) is a big thing that ties a complete collection together. Now this in no way means improvements and innovation is off the table, and we certainly are exploring many ways of brining amazing product to market. But for our core lines, I’m a big fan of consistency which really helps to ensure a collection can feel not only "complete" but at the end of the day worth collecting and dedicating a shelf to. Clearly with something like our JAKKS 20-inch line, we are asking fans to embrace a new scale. Its my job to help make that commitment pay off and ensure fans wind up with a collection worthy of the shelf space. After all, if you (a toy fan) are gearing up to display all of your 20-inch figures, JAKKS needs to pay this off with a full collection worthy of your display space! That is the "agreement" if you will between manufacturer and customer.

You were always very conscious of your individual figure budget on your (legendary) Masters Of The Universe Classics line and would add pieces that compliment past releases in future products. Is there room for you to do something similar with the JAKKS product lines?

YES I am a huge fan of the idea that a figure does not end with his, her or its initial release. The idea of getting additional parts or features that can improve a previous release (with another figures) not only helps sell future figures, but again, it pays off your collection as a while. Now this doesn’t mean shoe horning in parts that make no sense, and there is definitely a factor of strategically pairing accessories in an appropriate way.

So for example, as a hypothetical discussion point, we currently have a 20-inch Chewbacca figure at market. If we were to do a C-3PO down the line it might make sense to include a net backpack that could work with your existing Chewie to give collectors additional display possibilities and expand play for kids. These are the type of (hypothetical) executions we are always thinking about.