Above: Peter Walker (left) and Aubry Thonon (center left) speak at the fan-fiction/"Robotech Online" panel at ROBOCON 10. Tom Bateman (the con organizer) and Todd Hill are on the center right and right, respectively. Photo by Rahul Malhotra.
Peter Walker is an ionospheric physicist at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., working on Earth-observing FUV spectrometers aboard the Air Force DMSP weather sattelite program. Now retired from Robotech fandom, he spends his spare hours as an up-and-coming Scottish fiddler and Highland bagpiper, playing with the City of Alexendria Pipes and Drums, and the Celtic folk ensemble, The Devil's Tailors.
Pete completed his PhD at Rice University's Department of Space Physics and Astronomy, developing for Dr. Paul Cloutier a global magnetic potential model of the interaction of the Solar Wind's magnetic field with the Venus ionosphere. Formerly, as both a graduate and undergraduate student, he worked for Dr. Bob Haymes, developing a new type of balloon-borne gamma-ray telescope, Prometheus I. For a summer as an undergraduate he worked with Dr. Gene Herrin of Southern Methodist University's Geology and Geophysics Department. Pete is also active in the Rice Graduate Student Pub, Valhalla, and was co- manager for the 1995-1996 school year. Furthermore, Pete is the Houston site manager for Laser Fantasy International and a laserist at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, performing weekday and some evening shows.
Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Peter attended St. Mark's Episcopal School, from which he graduated in 1988. He then attended Rice University in Houston, receiving his B.A. in Physics in 1992, staying on there for graduate school.
Peter became involved with Robotech when it first aired in 1985, and was one of the few at the premiere of "Robotech - The Movie: The Untold Story" when it was released in Dallas in late summer 1986. Inspired by the film, and by his conversations with Carl Macek at the theater and days before at Lone Star Comics, Pete - along with his best friend Anand Rao - began to turn his nascent Mekton campaign into a fan-novel trilogy, on which they have since labored. Pete has authored numerous articles on the Internet regarding the original television show, and is the co-moderator of (and frequent poster to) the Robotech mailing list. He has also followed anime and manga in general, and was one of the founding members of a short- lived fan-club in Dallas.
In addition to Robotech, Peter has dabbled in history, language (he has studied Japanese and Latin, and maintains a rusty fluency in German), Asian art history, Indian and Chinese philosophy and religion, amateur astronomy (he is a certified operator on the 36" reflector at George Observatory in Brazos Bend State Park), and role-playing (especially Warhammer FRP). Unmarried, Peter is an enthusiastic amateur chef, and is also a violinist and a music lover - with special affection for classical, opera, classic rock, and the blues, in addition to his obsession with Celtic music. Pete has long been a fan of Science Fiction on television and film, beginning with Star Trek at a young age through Battlestar Galactica today.
Peter's main contribution to these files was as senior editor. He authored several entries, such as that for the REF veritechs and the history of Tirol, and wrote portions of the text for several others. Pete also acquired a fair number of the images for this web site, from Japanese animation sheets, books of cels, model boxes, and from frame-grabbing images from the show itself. Pete also gathered much of the information from the Japanese source material.
Aubry "Neoculture" Thonon was born in the closing days of 1969 in Beloeil, Belgium. He spent the first eight years of his life in Europe, being raised on Captain Future (Capitaine Flame), Space Pirate Captain Harlock (Albator), Gatchaman (Force G) and UFO Robot Grandizer (Goldorak).
In the late 70's, Aubry moved to Algeria then emigrated to Australia in 1982. Renewing his ties with Anime through Robotech on Breakfast TV, he become an avid fan from the first episode.
Founder and President of the local Anime club for seven years, Aubry graduated from the University of Queensland and started writing programs for a living writing Robotech fanfiction for leisure.
After a six-month programming contract in Illinois, Aubry is now back in Australia and continues to write both programs and various fanfictions.
Aubry's main contribution to these files was as nit-picker and general Devil's Advocate, as well as providing Peter with production sheets for Mospeada from an Artmic Production book - and, of course, being co-author of the timeline with Peter, and of the GMP hoverplatforms. Discussions with Aubry about the relative strengths of the Zentraedi and Invid, and the enigmatic "disciples of Zor" were also instrumental for Peter in his development of the history of Tirol.
Pieter Thomassen has as hobbies science fiction, as well as general and/or military history (with an accent on this century's conflicts).
Pieter first got involved with Robotech by a strange route for a so- called 'purist'; namely by scanning the local bookstores for something readable and happening upon the first four McKinney books. He wised up though.
Rob Morgenstern is a principal communications engineer for The MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development. He works as a system engineer for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's Next-Generation Air/Ground Communications System and works at defining and validating the associated national and international aviation standards and procurement specifications. This system will replace the aging radio communications system currently in use today for domestic air traffic control. He has been with MITRE since 1989 when he was working as a co-operative education student on prototype oceanic Automatic Dependent Surveillance controller workstations. His primary technical interests lie in voice coding, error protection coding, communications system design, prototyping and wireless applications.
Rob received a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1992 and 1994, respectively. While working on his Master's degree, Rob was a member of Virginia Tech's Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group under the tutelage of Dr. Brian Woerner studying low-rate speech coding in wireless applications.
Rob became interested in Robotech when it first aired and has slowly been adding to his collection. He has been a lurker on the Robotech Mailing List since 1992 who occasionally speaks out on technical issues if he feels he can make a contribution. Rob has been slowly acquiring source material to assist in the research into the Robotech mecha, and is the source material packrat for the RRG cabal. To assist in reading the material, he has started to teach himself how to read Japanese to assist Peter in the translations. From this Rob has become the Southern Cross zealot of the group.
Rob is currently living with his wife, Wendy, the rocket-scientist, and cat, Garibaldi, in a house in Silver Spring, MD and dreads his daily commute across the Potomac River into Virginia. His hobbies include science fiction, role-playing, and historical re-enactment. Rob is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism where he resides in the Shire of Roxbury Mill in the Kingdom of Atlantia. His medieval interests include armored and dueling combat and armor smithing. He is happy to have a shop in his basement where he can spend time banging away on his projects and maintaining his 15th/16th century reproduction armor. In support of his later period interests, Rob has joined up with Gardiner's Company of the Trayned Bandes of London for Elizabethan reenactment as a musketeer of the Southwark militia.
Rob is the web designer, librarian and junior contributer for the RRG. He has been the lead converter of the text files written primarily by Peter and Pieter into HTML format way back in 1995-6, providing some of the grunt work for these web pages. He has also assisted as one of the many editors of the files during their iterations on the Robotech Mailing List and later email groups, and has written some of the more recent files. Rob has pestered Peter and Pieter into including some of the more obscure mecha and vehicles and developed most of the auxiliary aircraft and vehicle files. He has gathered some of the early graphics files from hours of searching the web for interesting tidbits and has been grabbing tons of Southern Cross pictures in hopes of finally getting a decent picture of the Southern Cross space ships. Rob is also an avid collector of original source material on the various source series.
Jason W. Smith is a full-time professional pilot and part-time author. An FAA Certificated Instrument and Multi-Engine Flight Instructor (CFI, CFII, MEI), he holds Single- and Multi-Engine Commercial and Instrument ratings, and has logged more than 1,000 hours as a Flight Instructor. Based in St. Louis, MO as a First Officer on the Embraer EMB-145 Regional Jet for Chautauqua Airlines, Jason has flown in a multitude of aircraft, both civilian and military. A graduate of Texas A&M University-Commerce, he earned an MBA in Economics in 1997 and is author of the modestly popular "Robotech: Attention on Deck!" saga. Jason's interests range from mountain climbing to car restoration (he is currently involved in a detailed rebuild of his father's 1969 Dodge Charger "Old Yeller"). An Eagle Scout and former competitive shooter, he is an NRA Expert Rifleman, CAA American Archer, and NRA Certified Rifle Instructor. He currently resides in San Antonio, Texas with his wife Neona, their son Ira David William, and Shetland Sheepdog, Suki-Aki. Jason is a technical advisor to the Robotech Reference Guide providing insight from his military experience and pilot training.
Pete, Rob, Neil Baumgardner, and Linwood Foster in Rob's family room, 1999.
Neil Allen Baumgardner was born Nov. 24, 1975 in Charleston, SC, and living most of his life in surburban Goose Creek, SC. He attended the University of South Carolina from 1994 to 1998, earning a bachelors degree in International Studies. While at USC, Neil was active in Army ROTC, Model United Nations, and also became a fan of college sports (Go Cocks!).
Shortly after graduating from USC, Neil moved to Washington, DC to pursue his career. He is now the Army and International reporter for Defense Daily, having attended such events as the 1999 NATO Summit in Washington, Army Interim Armored Vehicle Platform Performance Demonstration at Ft Knox, and the 2000 Farnborough airshow in England.
Like most fans, Neil first saw Robotech in 1985. After it went off the air, Neil kept up his interest through the Palladium Role-Playing Game and the McKinney novels. His interest was significantly revived after discovering the internet fan community while in college. Neil acts as a technical advisor to the RRG.
Matt Willis is a professional piper, and member of the Dallas-based Celtic rock Band The Killdares.Tim Wing is a long time contributor to RRG and all around fan of all things Robotech. He also likes cars, guns, beer, red-meat, chewing-gun and kicking ass.
Harvey Neil Johnston originates from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Currently a Graphic Design student, Harvey began his affection for anime as a child from watching such television series such as Battle of the Planets. Exposed to Robotech in his adolescence, he has pursued it as an interest. His design interests include rendering images from anime, in particular mecha and characters. Harvey is our third resident artist.
Pete, Rob, Linwood Foster and Andy in Rob's family room for a little RRG gathering with Pete in the area, 1999.
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