The Evil Emperor's ability to control minds is the key to his rise to power. At a younger age, his enemies often had no idea the quantity of magical elixir they'd consumed or how many Republic credits they'd spent gambling on pod racing until it was too late.

Nate has been leading the development charge at Shift for almost four years and has led us from a motley crew of three people to a legitimate development agency. And while he would never admit it, Shift's success is a direct reflection of his hard work and leadership.

The head of the Rebel Alliance leads with the philosophy, "It's Better To Be Feared Than Loved." While rarely acknowleging others, The Admiral has been known to disintegrate those who neglect to take account of their daily time tracking. Atus was integral in the building of the new Shift Base Station, which he affectionately calls, "The New Office."

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Away during the destruction of his apartment in The Death Star, Commander Kenylovr was forced to find a new home. His anger toward The Rebellion is fueled by the difficulty of a much longer commute.

Brett has been with us for a year already, although it seems like much longer. His experience in strategically solving client problems — and communicating solutions with both nerds and normal people has made Brett a huge asset to the Shift team.

A long long time ago, Ustabecool was one of the most revered masters of the Jedi Order. Then one fateful winter night, he stumbled upon a small Ewok child. His weekends are now spent having dinner at 4:00pm when the Grand Jedi Masters are available to ewok-sit.

Now a sleep-deprived daddy, Smith's talent, work-ethic and evolution to a front-end mentorship role has helped us build such an talented, driven team.

Evrah attributes his success to a life full of regiment and structure. Every morning, the dark lord will fuel up with a local delicacy before going off on a hard day of genociding accross the galaxy.

Jeremy has made the transition between traditional design work at our sister company, Performance Marketing, to learning code and working on interactive design projects here at Shift. We're happy to have him (and his crude sense of humor).

Lord D.D. "The Destructor" Wahggz hails from the Dark Planet Winterset. His most rare talent is the ability to scavenge a planet for junk particles and in turn use those pieces to create destructive weapons. Rumor has it, he has hidden several weapons from The Empire in his massive beard.

Apart from taking ownership of the Andriod side of our mobile app development projects, Wags and his junk pile have been put to use creating random contraptions to solve problems for our clients. You never know what he'll have on his desk.

On the battlefield, The Evil Baron is a force to be reckoned with. Off the battlefield, he often says and does the strangest things. From time to time, he has sent indescipherable messages to every clone in the Empire, all while traversing the galaxy with a stuffed teddy bear.

Along with his super-talented design and development chops, Roman has given the Shift office plenty of entertainment over the past several years. A Ukraine native and a U.S. resident the last decade, Shift is lucky to have him.

In the midst of managing the finances of the Rebellion, Bök Krunchr also has the responsibility of tending to Admiral Atus' personal affairs. The excentric Admiral will often ask for something called Chiq Fil A and expect it delivered to him from across the galaxy at a moment's notice.

Tori's intelligence — and snark — helps her manage an office full of unmanageables. She's taken over the Shift office manager position and has helped mold us into a well-oiled machine.

"Puuter", as other dark-siders call him, has the strongest mind powers ever recorded. His ability to calculate geometric and algebriac equations without the help of an abacus has single-handedly won battles by out-strategizing their opponents

Since his arrival at Shift, Clayton has led the charge in the iOS mobile development realm, but can develop proficiently in any programming language in which we need him. Clayton is often seen playing pool, telling Roman how poorly he's managing his fantasy football team or laughing at Jeremy's ridiculousness.

Half human; half robot, D'Zine D.3.Z.Z. is the only member of The Rebellion who can command-line into the Imperial mainframe and procure sensitive communications and schematics. His vast database of information — and the fact that he doesn't smell like a human — has earned a promotion to the Admiral's main consigliere.

Wade is fantastic at making sense of garbled information, organizing it and using code to present it beautifully on a webpage. His design and front-end skills are already top-notch, we're excited he's continuing to grow and learn as a developer.

After unexpectedly crash-landing on the planet Tatooine, Part-A wandered the desert for years, looking for people to socialize with. The few times he'd encounter civilization, he was able to use his evil mind-control powers to persuade alien beings into "taking shots", a customary social tradition of the times.

Cody's one of original Shifters who helped build the foundation for the team we have now. His high-level Rails and Javascript expertise, along with his love for socializing, have been a staple in the Shift office.

The Rebellion has experienced huge successes in recent battles against The Empire and this is all attributed to Chek. Battle Commanders put together plans, but nothing is implemented until approved by The Queen.

Kristi is the experienced Quality Assurance expert that Shift has needed in the past and we're happy to have such an intelligent person submitting and resolving bug reports. Also, Kristi was out of town when we took these photos. That's called problem-solving, folks!

While he may even look like a run-of-the-mill human, this evil Sith has used his powers to destroy entire Rebel armies. In the political realm, he often solidifies agreements by mixing mystical concoctions and serving them to the Rebels prior to meeting with them.

Since coming on board in the last couple months, Torey has brought a wealth of Rails development experience to Shift. Always willing to jump in and solve a problem, Torey has quickly become a key part of the team.

Although Padawan Kingz is new to The Force, her quick wit has helped her escape difficult situations. While smuggling precious cargo out of the Empire's grasp, she was able to avoid several Imperial entanglements by sweet-talking her way out of trouble.

Although Rachel has just started her Project Management journey at Shift, her ability to adapt and her amazing organization skills — along with the unteachable skill to "not take any crap" — have made her right at home here at Shift.

Fueled by a mystical energy drink, the sleep-deprived Captain of the Empire has one mission in mind: Destroy all within his path. While he hasn't really been successful to this point, his dogged determination has been a huge asset to the defense against the Rebellion.

Eric started in the summer, was immediately thrown into managing a couple large projects and did it all in stride. In November he and his wife had their first child, Harrison. Although he's on little sleep, Eric manages to stay mostly coherent.

While typically appearing meek, Che possesses a power unrivaled by either side. When agitated, the Jedi unleashes powers so strong, he has been known to destroy entire Emperial starfleets. In his spare time, Che also enjoys collecting digital trading card artwork.

Cliff's passion for learning and providing the best possible solution for clients has helped Shift turn out some amazing work. We're excited to see more of Cliff's work in 2016.

A resident of a rare outpost many parsecs away from Coruscant, Onscouch has been known to allow other Siths to stay at his home whilst traveling through this distant part of the galaxy out of the Empire's hold.

CJ is another one of the mega-talented, full-stack developers that have come to Shift in the past year. His ability to solve nerd-problems and do it efficiently and timely has really added to the growth of several client teams. Also, Roman crashes on his couch.

The youngest member of the Rebellion ever to be named Commander, Kodepoet experienced a meteoric rise to the top of the Rebel command. Although young, he leads his armies like a seasoned veteran and was the key to the Rebel victory and destruction of the Death Star during the Battle of Endor.

Although Zach has only been called a Shifter for a little over a half year, he's taken the development lead on a large team-based project and guided the project to a successful launch. His talent and forward-thinking is one of the not-so-well-kept secrets to our success here at Shift.

Fillda Kegg escaped exile from the desolate wasteland planet of Neeh Brah Skaa many years ago. This wise old Sith spreads history lessons and anti-Rebellion propoganda throughout the Empire. Weekly, Lord Kegg will venture to the far reaches of the galaxy and return with a magical nectar used to appease the unruly citizens of the Empire.

One of the founding employees of Shift, Burns is always closing deals, making things happen and helping clients solve their interactive needs. Nobody cares more about the success of Shift than Chris.

While he is more than proficient with a lightsaber and a copy of Sublime Pro, Brother Skreenprinta battles his foes using the power of tshirts and posters. Look away for a second and he'll divert your gaze with a custom-made design so beautiful it'll make Imperial soldiers' eyes bleed.

Justin joined us back in October and he's brought the team's level of Javascript and CSS to new heights. In addition to getting his nerd on at Shift on the daily, Justin also leads the local Des Moines Web Geeks group.

By definition, The Intern is pretty much irrelevant to this whole war. But if anyone needs coffee, we'll totally have him pick some up for you.

Drew began the start of this war a young, inexperienced kid eager to learn the ways of The Force. He has now grown into a powerful knight. Joining the troops on the ground in Hoth, Kicksalot used his knowledge of the force and his powerful legs to trip and destroy over twenty Imperial walkers.

Andrew's positive attitude, work ethic, and ability to jump into Rails, Javascript, PHP, CSS, HTML — and almost any other acronym you can think of — has made him one of the most well-rounded developers out there.