Car­ol Quash

Meet Dr Garth Gard­ner. Born in Diego Mar­tin, Trinidad, and cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Wash­ing­ton DC, Dr Gard­ner grad­u­at­ed from the Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty with a PhD in Art Ed­u­ca­tion with a fo­cus on Com­put­er Graph­ics and An­i­ma­tion at age 25. He has writ­ten 14 books on the sub­ject of me­dia pro­duc­tion and an­i­ma­tion, and has pub­lished over 80 books on me­dia and ca­reers. He has his own pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny-GGC Pub­lish­ing-and has been sought for his con­sul­tan­cy ex­per­tise by sev­er­al US uni­ver­si­ties, and the Board of Ed­u­ca­tion of New York. Dr Gard­ner is liv­ing his pas­sion, but was not ashamed to ad­mit that he was not al­ways the sharpest tool in the shed. "I at­tend­ed Diego Mar­tin Sec­ondary and failed every­thing. Imag­ine I couldn't even pass Wood­work," he chuck­led.

The son of a Wood­work teacher and Boy Scout com­man­der, Gard­ner said he al­ways knew he want­ed to do graph­ic arts, and cred­it­ed his fa­ther's "ac­ci­den­tal vi­sion" for his suc­cess in the field. "At age 19 in 1988, when I went to live in the US, I want­ed to do what I want­ed to do, which was graph­ic arts. My dad said, 'Let him do what he wants. He'll find his way, and at least he will stay out of trou­ble'." From 1988 to 1992 he at­tend­ed the Har­ris­burg Area Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, City Col­lege of San Fran­cis­co, and the San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty.

"When I start­ed the pro­gramme at Har­ris­burg I had to take re­me­di­al every­thing," he sighed, adding that it was on­ly when he was en­rolled at the San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty that he re­al­ly got his bear­ings. "When I went to Cal­i­for­nia to study An­i­ma­tion, that's when I re­al­ly start­ed to fo­cus." One thing led to an­oth­er, and be­fore he knew it, the let­ters be­hind his name be­gan to leave a trail. "I have served as pro­fes­sor of Art at var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties, in­clud­ing William Pa­ter­son Uni­ver­si­ty and George Ma­son Uni­ver­si­ty. I have al­so pre­sent­ed pa­pers at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Los An­ge­les, Flori­da, A&M Uni­ver­si­ty and oth­ers, and I have been an art con­sul­tant for the New York Board of Ed­u­ca­tion, Fash­ion In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and nu­mer­ous in­sti­tu­tions," he beamed.

In fact, he was the brain be­hind the an­i­mat­ed DA­CA­TA fes­ti­val-Dig­i­tal Arts Com­put­er An­i­ma­tion and Tra­di­tion­al An­i­ma­tion-start­ed in 1996 at William Pa­ter­son Uni­ver­si­ty. "I'm con­sid­ered the na­tion's (US) ex­pert in An­i­ma­tion and Com­put­er Graph­ics," he added, not leav­ing out the fact that his stu­dents go on to work at cream-of-the-crop or­gan­i­sa­tions in the An­i­ma­tion and Com­put­er Graph­ics in­dus­try. "The stu­dents who come in­to my class­room move on to work in places such as Pixar An­i­ma­tion Stu­dios, Dream­works, and gam­ing com­pa­nies."

Dr Gard­ner views his work as a pub­lish­er and an ed­u­ca­tor as one and the same. "Pub­lish­ing and teach­ing are not ex­clu­sive. Both serve the pur­pose of im­part­ing knowl­edge. "As an ed­u­ca­tor and a pub­lish­er my aim is to make the best first­hand in­for­ma­tion ac­ces­si­ble to every­one." The sole dif­fer­ence, though, he said, was that his role as an ed­u­ca­tor al­lowed him to per­son­al­ly delve in­to the cre­ative minds and hearts of his stu­dents, and draw the po­ten­tial he knew lay with­in.

For more in­for­ma­tion on Dr Gard­ner and GGC Pub­lish­ing,

vis­it www.gog­a­rd­ner.com or e-mail gard­ner@ggcinc.com.