Thom Beers

Thom Beers is CEO and Executive Producer for Original Productions, the television production company known for the hit Discovery Channel series’ Monster Garage, Monster House, Biker Build-Off and the Primetime Emmy-nominated Deadliest Catch. The company received special recognition in 2006 and 2007 as one of the most notable production companies in Realscreen magazine’s Global 100.

Beers founded Original Productions in 1999, after years as an executive and producer for Turner Broadcasting and Paramount syndicated television. Under his own production banner, he began selling and producing unique programming domestically and internationally.

His award-winning company has built a strong relationship with Discovery Networks. It began with a quick succession of hit documentaries. Beers’ unique and stylized documentary film Motorcycle Mania II made its world premiere on Discovery, where it remains one of the network’s highest rated documentaries. His dramatic adventure documentary Deadliest Jobs, about the dangers of crab fishing in the Bering Sea, became another ratings winner for the network, and inspired the hit series Deadliest Catch, which has became a signature show for Original Productions. The second season of Deadliest Catch was an even bigger success for Discovery, emerging as one of the network’s highest-rated series and scoring a pair of Primetime Emmy Award nominations plus a Creative Emmy nomination. Season three began airing spring 2007, which has since received four Creative Emmy nominations.

Beers has grown his company into one of television’s leading suppliers of popular culture programming. Original’s list of shows on the air include Ice Road Truckers for the History Channel, Ocean Force for Court TV Next up for the company is scripted programming, a natural extension of the Original Productions brand.

Original Productions’ current production slate includes Axe Men for History; LA Port, about life running America’s largest port; 1000 Ways to Die for Spike; The Building, a six hour HD series following the construction of a 24 story building in Los Angeles scheduled for National Geographic Channel; Season four of Deadliest Catch; and Twister Sisters for WE TV which chronicles the chasing of tornadoes by two women who love the hunt - among other shows.

The list of other Original Production credits includes Ballroom Bootcamp, Biker Women, Boom!, Crash Files, Wing Nuts, Harley Davidson: The Birth of the V-Rod, Greatest Motorcycles, Motorcycle Mania I & II, Mystery of the Alaskan Mummies, Shipwrecks & Salvage, and many others.

Prior to establishing Original Productions, Beers served as the Series Producer for the hit syndicated wildlife series Wild Things for Paramount Television. Before joining Paramount, Beers operated in several high-ranking capacities during his 11-year tenure at Turner Broadcasting System, including serving as Vice President/Supervising Producer for Turner Original Productions. His responsibilities in that position encompassed supervising original programming for TBS Superstation, including the award-winning series National Geographic Explorer, Network Earth and The Jacques Cousteau Specials.

Beers created and executive produced the TBS and syndicated series Wild! Life Adventures. He also served as the producer for the highest-rated specials in the history of Turner Original Productions -- Harley Davidson The American Motorcycle, the Emmy-winning Cats And Dogs, and The Incredible Life and Times of Robert L. Ripley, Believe It or Not. Beers was also one of the creators and supervising producer of the animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and prior to that served as Vice President of Development for TBS Productions.

Before turning his energies toward production, Beers began his career as an actor, doing numerous stage productions in New York and along the eastern seaboard. He still keeps his hand in that business, providing the narration for most of Original Productions’ shows.

Thom Beers is a storyteller and television innovator who, by emphasizing real people doing extraordinary things, often in unexpected situations, has earned a reputation as one of the most creative and successful independent producers working in TV today.

Beers’ productions have won a number of Emmy, ACE, New York Film Festival, Cine Golden Eagle, Houston Worldfest Film Festival and National Education Awards. Deadliest Catch was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, Creative Emmy and International Documentary Assn. awards. He is a member of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the International Documentary Association.

Leslie Beers

As President of Amygdala Music, the music publishing and soundtrack division of ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS, Leslie D. Beers oversees the placement of original music in all series, specials and documentaries. This includes such popular shows as Deadliest Catch, Monster Garage and Biker Build Off on The Discovery Channel, Plastic Surgery Before and After on Discovery Health Channel, and The Messengers on TLC (The Learning Channel.) The company received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Main Title Theme Music” for “Zen House” from composer Daniel Mackenzie in the Discovery Channel series Monster House. The company also licenses music from its extensive catalogue for use in other television productions and has released four soundtrack albums available through Amazon, iTunes and local retail stories, as well as on its own web site. (www.Amygdalamusic.com). Those albums are Monster Garage 1, Monster Garage 2, Monster House and Motorcycle Mania featuring Jesse James and Kid Rock. The soundtrack for Deadliest Catch is currently in the works.

Ms. Beers, who is a passionate singer and artist herself and believes strongly about helping musicians, works with established and up-and-coming artists to bring new audiences to their music through AMYGDALA MUSIC. She prides herself on recognizing quality music by cutting edge artists such as composer Dieter Hartmann, Andrew Kubiszewski and the band Pilot Drift.

With the arrival of ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS UK, Ms. Beers looks forward to expanding Amygdala’s licenses throughout Europe and Asia.

Ms. Beers has been instrumental in the design of the ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS’ corporate offices, adding a touch of whimsy with vibrant colors, utilizing the colors of nature. Her vision and design sensibility is evident in the building, as she believes that environment is crucial to inspiring her employees plus the balance of female and male energy.

Ms. Beers is married to Thom and they have one son, Max. A self-professed gypsy, Ms. Beers also has her own line of jewelry.

Philip Segal

As President of ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS, Philip Segal has operating responsibility for the company’s more than 120 hours of original programming. A television industry veteran, Mr. Segal is responsible for coordinating all creative development of original productions, directing all efforts as it relates to program development and production. Shows produced by ORIGINAL include Deadliest Catch, Biker Build Off and Fugitive Strike Force for DISCOVERY CHANNEL; The Messengers and Resolutionaries for THE LEARNING CHANNEL (TLC); and The Building for National Geographic Channel.

Prior to joining ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS, Mr. Segal worked at Bunim-Murray Productions, creators and producers of MTV’s The Real World and E! Entertainment’s The Simple Life. Prior to that, he was head of scripted programming at Tribune Entertainment where he shepherded more than 150 hours of programming including Gene Roddenberry’s Andromedia, Beastmaster, Mutant X, Earth: Final Conflict and Adventure, Inc. .

Mr. Segal ran Lakeshore Television, where he directed The Other Side of Monday, which won the “Best Director” Award from the New York International Film Festival. He also wrote and directed Hobbs End. While at Lakeshore, Mr. Segal also developed Mission To Mars for ABC.

Prior to Lakeshore, Mr. Segal was Executive Vice President of television at Steven Spielberg’s AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT, where he was responsible for the creation of Seaquest DSV starring Roy Schieder on NBC and Earth 2, plus he oversaw production of the Stephen Hawking documentary A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. While at Amblin, Mr. Segal also worked with John Wells on the creation of the award winning series ER.

Prior to AMBLIN, Mr. Segal worked as a programming executive at ABC Television for three seasons, where he oversaw some of television’s most groundbreaking series, including thirtysomething, Twin Peaks, McGyver, Cop Rock with Steven Bochco and the award-winning series China Beach starring Dana Delaney.

Mr. Segal started his career working as an assistant to casting legends Mike Fenton and Jane Feinberg where he worked on Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories. In the early eighties, Mr. Segal did stints at ICM in the TV Literary department and at Columbia Pictures Television in development and programming.

Mr. Segal graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Telecommunications. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Producers Guild of America (PGA). He is married to Stephanie Segal and has a son Noah.

Tim Beers

Tim Beers has served as the Chief Financial Officer for Original Productions since March 2003. Original Productions is the television production company known for the hit Discovery Channel series’ Monster Garage, Monster House, Biker Build-Off and the Primetime Emmy-nominated series Deadliest Catch.

As CFO, Tim is responsible for all accounting, financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, tax, internal audit, strategic planning and analysis functions for Original Productions. Beers is also President of O’Merch, the product placement, licensing and merchandising affiliate of Original Productions.

Prior to joining Original Productions, Beers worked in the banking industry, including JP Morgan Chase in New York where he worked in the corporate banking department for five years, and Key Bank in Buffalo.

Ernie Avila

As Chief Operations Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Affairs, Ernie Avila is in charge of all business operations plus management of IT, facilities and Max Post for ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS.

Mr. Avila joined ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS in 1999 when the company was producing just five hours of programming. Since then, he has been instrumental in helping to negotiate all of the company’s production deals, including talent agreements, footage and still clearances and working with vendors including the DISCOVERY CHANNEL, THE HISTORY CHANNEL, TLC (THE LEARNING CHANNEL) and other networks for all of ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS’ reality programs, including 86 episodes of Monster Garage for DISCOVERY CHANNEL. He also oversees Max Post, the company’s post production facility.

Prior to joining ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS, Mr. Avila spent eighteen years at Reuters where he worked in the financial services department which managed broker workstations. There, he was also a member of the financial team that audited the company’s communications network in order to reconcile communications costs to the company’s budget.

Mr. Avila studied business at the University of Phoenix in Los Angeles. He is married with three children.

George Puckhaber

As Vice President, Production for ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS, George Puckhaber oversees the production of all series and specials for the company. Mr. Puckhaber supervised the production of 120 hours of programming in 2005 and is currently involved with a dozen programs in active production, including the Discovery Channel hit series’ DEADLIEST CATCH, which has garnered three Emmy nominations including Outstanding Nonfiction Series. He is also leading the way on the new season of Discovery’s BIKER BUILD OFF and FUGITIVE STRIKE FORCE, a new series for Discovery slated to air in Fall 2006. Mr. Puckhaber recently wrapped five seasons of MONSTER GARAGE, the Discovery Channel’s top rated series starring Jesse James. Other projects he has overseen for ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS have aired on networks including TLC, Discovery Health, Spike, and FX.

Mr. Puckhaber has over 19 years of production supervision experience in the television industry. A veteran television executive, he started his career in the mailroom at Turner Broadcasting System in Atlanta. Mr. Puckhaber worked his way up through a variety of production and management positions and was promoted to vice president, production for Turner Original Productions after five years at the company. In this position, Mr. Puckhaber was responsible for overseeing the financing, production and delivery of over 150 hours of original programming for TBS, TNT and the CNN Networks. During his tenure at Turner, he worked on the award winning series’ THE COLD WAR, David Attenborough’s TRIALS OF LIFE and TBS’ four part series DRIVING PASSION: AMERICA’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE CAR.

In April 1997, Mr. Puckhaber moved to Washington, D.C. where he was Vice President of Production and Business Affairs for ALEXANDRIA PRODUCTIONS. While there, he produced shows for TLC (The Learning Channel) including ROME: POWER AND GLORY narrated by Peter Coyote, HERO SCHOOL, MYSTERIES OF THE BIBLE forNBC and Animal Planet’s 1999 CANINE FRISBEE DISC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP plus 60 episodes of ballroom dancing competition for GoodLife TV and a weekly science/news program for Discovery Science.

Mr. Puckhaber has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and he is an avid motorcyclist.