The Monkey is not a mascot. He doesn't like bananas or swinging from vines. He's like our chief innovation officer: he points us to the future and puts the shazam into everything we do. He's the one who goes into the back room and comes out hours later with, like, singed eyebrows and a demonstration involving toner cartridges and non-dairy creamer. And pretty soon we find ourselves crushing another cool photo editing feature you never knew you always wanted.

Most ironic mod: rigging an electric massage tool to wax and buff his muscle car

Significant brother: his hairless cat, Kojak

Moment of glory: winning a Karaoke contest at which he sang the periodic table of the elements

Will lecture for food: now taking bookings for “What others have learned from my speeches, lectures, and fireside chats around the world”

Cooper got her start story editing and coordinating scripts at the Muppets. She produced kids and teen programs for NBC, ABC, and PBS before deciding her true destiny was slinging content for software. At Microsoft, she pioneered new media formats for interactive television, interactive fiction, and online learning. For PicMonkey, Cooper makes words happen good, and nervously awaits punishment for fake ones like “embetterment” and the scientifically lazy characterization of an ape referred to as The Monkey. She holds a master's degree in stuff she doesn't need to know from Columbia University.

Roommates: two children, husband, and a dog who believes he is her husband

Past time pastime: dislocating her life at Seattle's onstage storytelling series “A Guide to Visitors”

Tony nominating moment: putting out a fire onstage while staying in character in 8th grade play

A good listener and a people pleaser, Jenn Wells was a natch for the customer service jobs that kicked off her career. Her first great job was working at the legendary Elliott Bay Book Company, where she developed her customer love mojo. Wells moved to TeachStreet.com, a tech startup that helped lifelong learners connect with independent teachers. When TeachStreet closed their doors, PicMonkey got the best community outreach specialist in this hemisphere. She's also an outdoor enthusiast and an urban culture vulture all rolled up into a foodie burrito.

Current photo project: printing all her photos from the past two years

Favorite backpack destination with a fairy tale name: the Enchantments, in Washington state

Why she never surfed in Hawaii: fear of eels and other creepy deep water creatures

Crawled under the B12 curtain to: defect from veganism, after years of allegiance

After getting a master's degree in health sciences, Hess wasn't quite sleepless enough in Seattle. So she took a job at the famously intense Amazon while pursuing an MBA on the side. She cut her teeth learning product management and springboarded into the larger world of tech. At Expedia, she created the ad platform for hoteliers and other media solutions across multiple brands, and then built up Picnik's monetization business and moved with the team to Google. Here at Big Orange, she oversees funnel optimization and brings the PicMonkey shazazzle to international markets while forging strategic partnerships with like-minded magic makers.

When the Tennessee accent comes out: phone calls with hometown friends and whenever she drops stuff

Most painful part of working in high tech: cutting herself making her own desk at Amazon.com

Happiest moment involving suction cups: spotting an elusive octopus during a deep dive in the Maldives

If it's life you're looking for, it's life you got. After pinballing between Detroit and Kentucky for two decades, Anthony said buh-bye to America and hey-heeyyyyy to adventure. We're talking Morocco. We're talking VW vans. We're talking giardia. After his misadventures abroad, Antoine planted himself in the tech industry, ultimately surrendering to the allure of our digital magic. Now he's our test engineer, making sure the Monkey monkeys just right.

Where he spends a suspicious amount of time: under his house

Most disappointing hitchhiking hiccup: turns out the English countryside isn't filled with cute cottages

When to mention his missed chance at owning a winery: never

"People tell me I'm very West Coast." He is. Mister Mellow hails from a mining town in northern California, where cheap earbuds are the best way to rebel from your audio engineer parents, and hanging out by the river is a thing of beauty. Once upon a time Travis fell into the depths of a Commodore 64, poring through pages of code, enchanting his elementary school peers with animated stories, and igniting a lifelong passion for graphics programming.

Newfound interest after having a daughter: synth-pop girlbands

Best joke made in a full Space Needle elevator: "More like Crowded Needle"

His secret lullaby: that sound in The Blues Brothers where they crawl out from the bricks

Ben's first experiences with engineering were at junior high LAN parties, or as he describes it: "melding minds and creating a proto-friendternet." He had fun with the physics of hardware systems before deciding on the freedom of software. After honing his skills at Amazon and takin' names at start-ups all over town, Ben calls PicMonkey home. As for his amazing work-life balance, he credits his even amazinger soccer team.

Thrilled to live a life without: alarm clocks

Level of willful masochism: traveling cross-country for overnight relay races

Ideal celestial landmark: beer volcano

Forget the concept of magical ability and its evil twin phrase, "I'm just not good at that." As a designer turned wetland ecologist turned designer again, Troy is art and Troy is science. He went from tromping through the Pacific Northwest as a wetland ecologist to branding "Halo 3" at Bungie and then designing "Taste Magazine" at PCC Natural Markets. In our band of scrappy go-getters, he's shown that with a buncha brains and exploration, he gets stuff done and gets it done right. Take a look around and see for yourself.

Title with a trophy to prove it: 1984 Grand Champion Dairy Goat Showman

First words to the EMTs after a 40mph cycling crash: "You guys got here fast!"

He woke up like this: on a beach to the sound of distant orcas

Anne has always found the path to the next adventure (especially navigating tourists through rocky mountain passes, but the dude ranch days are over). As a life coach, she empowered moms to keep their autonomy and challenge the notion that womanhood defines or limits them. Her work in education, corporate communications, and professional well-being make her a sensational talent. Anne's wonderfully human touch make her an incomparable ambassador to the PicMonkey community of affiliates, bloggers, users, and media experts.

Between hydroplane races and jet flyovers she found: a soulmate

Her nightmare word combination: "moist portion"

No comment on: the doughboy

Michelle's got the West Coast chill, the casual suspicion of established authorities that reinforces her big thinking and bigger ideas. But it was back east in Massachusetts that she learned how to code and make sweet graphics. And like many a hardworking prodigy in the '90s, her interest in games and gadgets led to Microsoft, where she worked on multiplayer collaboration and tablet SDKs before everyone and their nephew had a tablet. In no time she rocketed to the starclouds of the mobile gaming universe. Now she's here on planet PicMonkey, working on our top secret [REDACTED].

Can't stop won't stop: patching up the perfect pair of jeans

Magnificent owner of: an umbrella with a sword hilt

Just an ordinary head-to-head on the game platform she built: Gates vs. Buffett

Peter's one of those switcharoo types. He had a biotech career all planned out, until a freak lab accident turned him into Seattle's colossal, shape-shifting menace! (By which we mean a coding project made him stop and smell the sweet matrices of data manipulation.) He went to validate data for Google Maps by day and learned Python by night. Since then, he's been pedal to the metal on the road to greatness, from cancer research to Moz. On top of his impressive engineering skills, Peter's got a gift for exploring ideas, solving unsolvable problems, and rearranging your pens when you're not around.

Consequence of the curious life: standing chest-deep in a mudflat

Keep him away from: unfixed fixables

Demonstrated knack for upworthy headlines: "You won't believe what you click next!"

Duffy may be a Pacific Northwest native, but she's not foreign to leaving everything behind and going to unfamiliar places. Her world travels include stints in Hungary and teaching third graders in Cambodia, where she put her International Relations degree and packing skills to use (we still don't know how she survived for 14 months with only two suitcases). Now she's the human glue that keeps PicMonkey together, from ordering coconut cream birthday pies as the office manager to analyzing expenditures as a member of the finance team.

Fills her Pinterest boards with: all kinds of culinary inspiration, especially Vietnamese food she's made with her mom

Moonlights as: an urban treasure hunter, scouring the city and crawling into logs during her frequent geocaching missions

Favorite thing to knock over with a motor scooter: pay stations in Cambodia (but it really wasn't her fault; that machine had a mind of its own)

When Roberson walks into the office, it's difficult not to sing "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah App Man!" He uses his mad engineering skills to thwart those that would do mobile experiences harm, as evidenced by the Getaways app he spearheaded for Groupon. Roberson also developed commercial e-commerce backend solutions at Mantis Technology Group, and gave Google Glass wearers the ability to see the future (while getting egged in the back) before joining the PicMonkey team. Now he spends his days coding away and making sure Androiders will fall head over heels for our mobile app, while wearing really snazzy jackets.

In his petrolhead dreams: he's riding around in a white Ferrari Testarossa

Gets hopped up on: hops, digging the Pacific Northwest's outstanding craft beer scene

Puts his rockstar skills to use: singing and playing guitar with his "acoustic progressive metal" project

Lillis may not actually be a train conductor, but her knack for keeping projects moving and on track makes us think she'd be a really good one. She's fluent in exotic business languages like Marketer and Engineer, which saves us from drawing stick figures in order to get things done. Before joining the PicMonkey team, she put her uncanny ability to help teams interface to use at super-cool tech company Ratio, and Morse Best Innovation. And before that, she doled out all kinds of 'Merica knowledge as part of the communications team at Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello.

Murder weapon in "Clue" that causes flashbacks: rope, because of her days working at a rope manufacturer, where she learned a lot about something called splicing

Gets her dose of "chip chip Cheerio": from long slogs watching "Poldark," and pretty much everything on Masterpiece Theater

Furry childhood playmates: the black bears that frequented the backyard of her family's home in Juneau, Alaska

Coldham was first exposed to coding in the era of floppy drives, but he didn't really hear software's siren song until he built an ecommerce web page for a PC builder. After putting his engineering brilliance to work at Expedia, Egencia, and TravelPost, Coldham racked up cofounder credits at Trover and Front Desk, Inc. His days at PicMonkey are filled with strategic planning, firefighting, and figuring out how to do things better. Faster. Stronger. His days not at PicMonkey include roasting meat and spending time with his wife and his dog, Banana.

Fave flavor enhancer for popcorn: the latest blockbuster movie (yes he'll be in line at midnight)

Natural athletic ability: sarcasm

Gets his awe-inducing Tetris skills from: bagging groceries in high school

Meyer may have “old people hobbies”—like genealogy and cruising estate sales for collectibles—but when it comes to design, she's cutting edge. She kicked off her career as a webmaster at Text 100 Public Relations before whipping up killer user experiences for the likes of eBay, AT&T, and Intuit as the design director at digital marketing agency, Metia. Thanks to a wormhole in the space-time continuum, she also found enough hours to craft snappy UX for Microsoft Lync and the mobile app Send, launch a clothing store for independent designers, and help build a startup design firm. Now she makes things feel natural and intuitive for PicMonkeyers everywhere, and keeps her colleagues in stitches with her quirky sense of humor.

Proffered schlock: while working in the Space Needle's gift shop during Bjork and Donny Osmond's visits

Prized 007-worthy possession: a vintage Japanese spy camera, purchased at Camden market in London

Clark Kent's got nuthin' on: her wardrobe of stylish eyeglasses from Warby Parker

When it comes to cooking up killer UX designs, Sivertsen requires two things: a collaborative process and a huge stack of Post-It notes. She put her mad skills and secret crush on visual design to use crafting responsive design solutions at Getty Images, developing the MSN mobile experience at Microsoft, and flexing her graphic design muscles at Bellevue Arts Museum before joining the PicMonkey team. You'll frequently find her solving puzzles at the whiteboard and bug bashing with developers. When she's not at work, she loves honing her Italian skills and discovering new things inside Seattle and out.

Favorite phalange workout: creating sweet sounds on the accordion

Game you wouldn't want to play with her: Dance Dance Revolution, cuzza her dangerous moves from ballet and flamenco training

Drool as you watch: her unpack the crazy-good vegetarian food she brings to work for lunch

Wilson's passion for preserving audiovisual history led her to all kinds of adventures—like creating catalog records for illustrious New York Times cartoonist Al Hirschfeld's home movies, working with the Directors Guild of America, and earning a master's degree in Moving Image Archive Studies from UCLA. Along the way, she traveled the world, figured out the complexities of a 1930s projector, and doled out grub to Googlers in something called a "micro kitchen." She's a master at helping the PicMonkey community out of creative quandaries and locating top-notch baked goods.

Lives the post-colonial dream: by baking oh-so-American apple pie and binging on British TV shows

Non-food item she savors: every issue of “Lucky Peach”

If she'd been born seven minutes and one second earlier: she could gloat about having more life experience than her twin brother

Gaertner took to the high seas as a member of the sailing team at Princeton, and later helped the online role playing game “Pirates of the Burning Sea” set sail as a lead developer at Flying Lab Software. Non-swashbuckling gamers can thank her for the kickin' UI design of XBox Live and shooter game Hybrid's graphics. As the technology director at Big Fish Games, she ensured superior programming quality for a passel of titles. At PicMonkey, she blends her artistic and technical skills to keep our future graphics initiatives lookin' good.

Traverses exotic terrain: while competing in triathlons and half marathons all over the globe

Puts sugar, spice, and everything nice: into the birthday cakes she loves to bake (especially the vanilla cake/chocolate frosting variety)

Channeled her inner Frank Lloyd Wright: while earning degrees in architecture and civil engineering

Peter has ascended the ranks of engineering mastery and achieved a zenlike state that allows him to alternate between wildly different tasks without losing his concentration, bouncing between Flash and Javascript like it ain't no thing. Peter's quest for enlightenment has led him on a professional journey from founding his own startup to exploring the world of webcasting as a senior developer at TalkPoint Communications. After conquering the concrete jungle (that's NYC, folks), he and his wife moved to Seattle for fun, and PicMonkey gained a sensei.

Why he can theoretically kill you: years of literal martial arts training

On Game of Thrones, he'd be: Melisandre, because no matter what happens, she stays warm

Secret superpower: having the best family

An alumni of Carnegie-Mellon University, where his father was a luminary during the formative years of computer science, Frits was ultimately pulled away from interests in classical piano, Aikido, and photography to follow in similar footsteps. He pushed boundaries on his own at Adobe, where he co-founded InDesign, operated as VP of Core Technologies, and helped develop much of the palette, drawing, and layout experiences that shaped the Creative Suite's user interface during his 18-year tenure. He moved on to become CTO of Popcap Games, and then CTO of Lynda.com before coming back to design and photography, here with yours truly.

So many places, not enough time: to pursue his passion, landscape photography, in destinations as far flung as Namibia, Iceland, and wherever sunrise pours over a hilltop

A piece of his heart lies: in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which is halfway between his birthplace, Holland, and his adopted home of Pittsburgh

Almost burst into flames: walking over an active lava field in Hawaii just to get a great shot

Describing Celeste, we're tempted to use words like "wunderkind" and "startling intellect," but we'll let you be the judge: recruited by Goldman Sachs while still in college, she moved to the East Coast to complete her degree and get her start in finance. Celeste has advised hedge funds and private wealth clients on investment strategies and taken on internationalization efforts at Microsoft - move that sent her to Munich, Hong Kong, and full-time to Beijing. At PicMonkey, she delves deep into the data of our past to forecast our future, and fortifies us against the vicissitudes of fate with sound, numbers-driven strategies.

Best advice for traveling and life: "What's important is not what you say, but what people hear."

Worst thing she ate while abroad: rabbit head. (It's a delicacy in China, so you can't turn it down!)

Best thing she ate while abroad: family-style hot pot, with raw ingredients combined in a big pot while you watch, and a man dancing with noodles to Michael Jackson. (Also in China.)

Dunn got a taste for accounting in high school and it's been a straight line to photo editing ever since. After his master's degree, he snagged a spot at Big Four accounting firm KPMG, where he specialized in state and local taxes for business. At PicMonkey, he helps make the business more efficient, and analyzes new markets. He would like you to know that accountants are not "number nerds" and, when you hear they are no fun at parties, it's because someone's confused them with bookkeepers.

Was super-human at age 5: when he was put on steroids for a food allergy and became taller, stronger, and faster than all the other kids

Can never go back to: drinking regular brew, since the Pacific Northwest made him into a beer snob

Does not understand: being called "Scotty-Potty" when "Scotty the Hottie" is just as euphonious

Brent's our COO here on the good ship PicMonkey, managing the company's business and operations teams. This level of ubermenschly job-juggling is truly bananas (not a term we use lightly around here), but Brent comes prepared. He previously occupied a series of increasingly heavyweight roles at SurveyMonkey, where he did everything from acquiring businesses to launching new products to managing sales. When he joined the SurveyMonkey team, it was a scrappy dozen employees; by the time he left, it had grown to a gobsmacking 700+. We're thrilled to have him, not only for his proven ability to nurture small startups into global leading players, but for his outstanding experience in monkey-themed companies.

Secret ability: When he and Maria are in the same room, they have the power to summon Captain Planet

Best feat of athleticism: Played on a national-championship-winning soccer team at 17

Currently medaling in: Stroller-accessible hiking with his wife, child, and two dogs

This self-taught imagineer started making his own games as a kid, then got pretty good at it and dodged a legal career in favor of the emerging gaming industry. Jonathan's interest in building worlds has injected a sense of wonder and whimsy into the core of planet PicMonkey. Besides being an amazing leader in the tech industry, Jonathan is a collector, a geek, a true listener, and a dad.

You'll definitely never hear him say: maybe

No love lost for: his Star Trek figurine collection, unfit for middle age

His pick for the best wood-paneled station wagon: Grand Wagoneer all the way, baby!