About Our Business

After an accident that led into an extended hospital stay, Brian bought Brian some action figures to work with, to keep him busy and pass the time. Soon Brian was making custom figures and buying more. But custom figures led to an excess in pieces and parts and so Brian went on eBay to sell off the extras. Soon Brian was buying and selling on eBay and having a lot of fun. And so it goes.

And that is how BlackOPS|Toys began. Lemons out of lemonade and all that.

Brian has been collecting action figures all his life. His parents and grandmother's garages were full of them and the last time he moved they took up almost an entire U-haul truck and a full day to move. He graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon in 1995 and graduated from University of Oregon in 1999 with a degree in Psychology. He spent three months backpacking around Europe after his college graduation and spent a year and a half teaching English in Japan in 2002 and 2003.

He has worked as a salesman most of his adult life. He's sold copiers, insurance, televisions and, of course, action figures. He currently works in Big Box retail as a home theatre advisor, selling home theatre systems and upgrades. He is also the founder of BlackOPS|Toys and works over 30 hours a week at being the premiere provider of 1/6 scale loose parts in the world. He will accept no less than global domination.

In his spare time, Brian plays his xBox 360 and Company of Heroes online, enjoys watching movies, walking and spending time with his friends. He loves to travel, ride rollercoasters, camp and listen to books on CD. He has been known to disappear for hours in Powell's City of Books. You can visit him on his MySpace and on occasion he posts on the 1/6 Warrior Forum.

Brian has known Brian since high school. They were roommates together in college and have remained friends and are now business partners in BlackOPS|Toys. Brian works for a large shoe manufacturer, in fact, the largest shoe manufacturer and sports branded company in the world. If you can't figure out who, here's a hint, the company is named after a Greek god and started by a man named Phil.

Brian also graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon in 1995. He has a beautiful daughter and enjoys golfing and exercising in his spare time. ...

Jennifer is entirely new-ish to the action figure business. She is entirely familiar, however, with collecting things and understands how much fun and how much work it can be. She has an X-Files magazine collection, a Farscape action figure collection, a U.S. quarter collection, well, you get the idea. She graduated from high school in small-town Montana in 1987 and quickly got married and had three children. As a young mother, Jennifer got her Bachelor's in Anthropology from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Which was quite an experience considering she made her way out of the Mormon church while at BYU. She is now attending Portland State University getting her Master's in Applied Anthropology with no particular focus at this time. She also works part-time for Big Box retail in the Geek Squad.

Jennifer's children are now almost grown up and in her spare time she practices Bikram Yoga, reads books of all genres, enjoys walking and hiking and camping. Jennifer loves to travel and ride rollercoasters (is this sounding familiar....ah....there is a reason). She enjoys playing Mah Jong, Need for Speed and Mario Kart. She has been designing and writing web code since 1997 and though at times it has worked into a steady job, she really does it more for the fun and the learning factor. She has four personal websites, maintains a blog that, while not meant to be an ex-Mormon blog, is one of the most popular exmo blogs in Google's search results, that has landed her notoriety in the Ex-Mormon community. The BlackOPS|Toys website was one of the most challenging sites she has put together.

She shares her life and love of travel and love of books and, while not as exciting, her Big Box employment with Brian (the first one). They met three and a half years ago while working at the same store in Beaverton, Oregon.