About Us

Jim Gill – President
Owner of Reel Efx, and is in charge of Research and Development. He also coordinates the commercial effects jobs. He holds patents for the DF-50 Diffusion Fogger, Aerosol Diffusion Fog, Fan-Mount Mechanism, DAC Fan, and the man-made tornado. Jim is a member of ESTA and IATSE and has been a guest lecturer at UCLA for courses in film production.

Susan Milliken– Vice President
Handles day to day project operations including bidding, procurement and design of effects jobs. She is a skilled painter and muralist with more than 15 years experience in the entertainment industry, responsible for working with directors from concept to finished product. She attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Rosy Romano – CFO
Responsible for the financial and legal aspects of the company and a participant in the everyday operation of effects jobs development. She has been working in the financial field since 1987, five years of which were spent with a reputable CPA firm.  She has been working in the entertainment industry and with Reel Efx, Inc. since 1994, and is a graduate of California State University of Northridge as well as a California Commissioned Notary Public.

Mark Ritner – Sales Manager
Responsible for all equipment sales and oversees the manufacture of new and existing products. He has a degree in electronic engineering from ITT and has been in sales and management for over 14 years. His first priority is to make sure that the customer is always satisfied with their product and the service they received.

Karyn Beaman – Rental Manager
In charge of all effects equipment rentals and maintenance. Oversees loading of equipment for effects jobs and takes care of building maintenance. She is extremely knowledgeable in the needs of the customer and specifics for achieving their desired effect. She has been in the special effects industry for over 8 years

John Risch – R & D Engineer
In charge of the research and development of new products, PCB design, electrical hardware interfacing, and application engineering for on-set equipment. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering with emphasis in robotics and control systems. He is also experienced with control system design using FPGA implementations in Verilog HDL.

Areg Balayan - CAD/CAM/CNC Opertaor

Full service design for the completion of a CNC product. In charge of staff, development of working drawings, CAD files, and manufacture of product. Utilizing CAM software, he is able to develop a process plan to generate a program for CNC machines. He has certification in manual programming with HAAS machines and also a full certification of Gibbs CAM software in milling, advanced milling, and solid surfacer.

Kevin Berve - Creative Director

One of the crew of experts devoted to the creation of professional Special Effects for Reel Efx. He has an extensive background in Props, FX Makeup and Special Effects for film and television. Also in charge of collecting, archiving and uploading spots to the RFX website.

He has been working in the industry for over 17 years and loves what he does.

Joe Andreas - Shop Foreman / SFX Technician

Adam Forster

Tino Chicas – Manufacturing Supervisor

Vernon Henderson - Director of Custodial Operations