It is with a mixture of proudness, sadness, and well-wishing that we would like to announce that Robert Hodgin, one of the founding partners of The Barbarian Group will be stepping down as a managing partner, and leaving the full-time employ of TBG at the end of this month. The Barbarian Group doesn’t expect Robert’s departure to have any impact on its business, for reasons we’ll describe in a moment, but Robert definitely leaves his mark on the company and will be missed.

Robert has been with us since the first meeting of the founding partners in Benjamin’s loft in late 2001. He was one of the first generation of groundbreaking Flash artists, and was instrumental in establishing TBG’s creative and executional chops, nurturing the first group of creatively and technically savvy flash artists that helped TBG rise to prominence in 2002 and 2003.

Through the years, Robert has transitioned from Flash to other technologies, most notably becoming an early adopter and proponent of Processing. He also moved out to San Francisco, and helped us set up shop on the west coast. Of late, Robert has been participating in the development of new technical frameworks within TBG, most notably with Cinder, our in-progress C++ visual development framework, on which Robert will still continue to work. Robert has also pursued his technical art relentlessly, blogging his experiments both on our blog and on his highly acclaimed personal blog, Flight404.com.

Robert’s work continues to be groundbreaking, innovative, and unlike anything anyone else is doing (except, of course, for those who have been, shall we say, heavily influenced by Robert). It is also the work of an artist, and not the work that people often wish to engage a full professional services company for. Our new arrangement with Robert allows him to pursue projects that he couldn’t previously pursue, while still giving TBG access to Robert’s unique skills when the situation calls for it. We’re excited, Robert’s excited, and there are probably a million potential clients of Robert’s that can afford to hire him now that are very excited as well.

So please join us in wishing Robert good luck in his future endeavors. He’ll be blogging soon about the transition and we’ll post that here as well. Then we encourage you to follow his future work at www.flight404.com. Farewell, sir!