Gregory Michael Ashe

Greg arrived in this world on October 12, 1979 in Las Vegas, Nevada – son of Mike and Kathy Ashe and younger brother to Amy. His birth completed the Ashe Family. He attended George E. Harris Elementary School, Woodbury Jr. High School and finally Chaparral High School as an adolescent in Las Vegas. Baseball, fencing, laser tag and Greg's increasing love for gaming played significant roles throughout these years. In high school, Greg had a deep love for the trumpet and participated in Chaparral High's Jazz & Marching bands. He also studied at the AP level during his junior and senior years, while interning for the engineering department at UNLV. In his final year of high school, Greg worked as a legal courier for the law offices of Shea & Carlyon, Ltd. It was during these years that Greg's outgoing and infectious personality began to emerge, and the foundation was laid for the second chapter of his life.
In 1998, Greg began a new journey in Southern California when he accepted a Trustee Scholarship to attend Occidental College in Eagle Rock, next to downtown Los Angeles. As he acquired a degree in chemistry, he also established a cherished community of friends in this new place he called home. After he graduated in 2002, Greg explored further education by taking some classes at UCI, while considering various job opportunities. In 2004, he decided to follow his childhood passion, when he applied for employment at Blizzard Entertainment, starting as an entry-level, In-Game Support Representative. He obtained the position, and thus, launched his career in the gaming industry. Within a short time, he moved through the ranks in Customer Support and then transitioned into Tech Research. In 2008, he helped to initiate the company's Business Intelligence and Risk team, where he spent most of his Blizzard career, first as a team member, then as the manager and ultimately taking lead as the director of the team. Greg's final contributions at Blizzard occurred when he took on the role as Senior Director of the eSports team in December 2012. For the next 7 months, he traveled incessantly from Irvine and San Francisco to Europe and Asia, especially Korea, for negotiations. As a result, he attained the cooperation between the top-tiered leagues and launched the current running World Championship Series (WCS), which is Blizzard's officially sanctioned and sponsored worldwide Starcraft II League that competes year-round, culminating in the global finals at BlizzCon.
Amidst Greg's aforementioned time at Blizzard, he met the love of his life, Christina Fu, in early 2009. Not long after falling in love, they got married in October 2010 and decided to settle down in Irvine, where they continually enjoyed good food, good friends and good spirits. In April 2011, Greg had furthered his academics by embarking on a quest to earn his Executive MBA from UPenn's Wharton School of Business at the San Francisco campus and graduated in the Spring of 2013.
Last summer, Greg resigned from Blizzard to pursue his dream of starting his own game company, Shield Break Studios. Throughout this past year, his hard work and vision wouldn't have progressed to the beta-phase of fruition without his founding partners and fellow industry supporters/friends…notably, Matt Genovese, who continues to fight for his health and recovery as a result of this horrific accident...
Greg would have wanted nothing more than to see his vision fulfilled and for his team's hard work to become a widespread success. Greg's story was written the day his life was created, and though nobody may understand why his story ended here, we can only take comfort in the fact that his legacy will live on forever in the future of Shield Break Studios. He will undoubtedly be remembered forever in the hearts of his loved ones; may his soul rest in peace. As Greg would often say…"Stay Beautiful."