Robert AhrensRobert W. Ahrens was born and raised in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. His hometown Elgin was famous for watches and street sweepers. An artist all his life, Robert had a dream to be either a famous comic book artist or book illustrator. After grauating college with a degree in graphic design, he began a short career in advertising. Somehow creating ads just wasn't his dream job. His father had been a firefighter and had always instilled in his sons that you need to do more than just earn a paycheck. In 1990 Robert started working in the newsroom of The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois. He began a career as an informational graphic artist. During this new career he would be responsible for creating bar charts, locator map, explanatory graphics as well as illustrations. He would win many local, regional, state, national and international awards. His last newspaper was to be USA TODAY where he would eventually become the Night Graphics Editor. During this time, he was also able to work in his love of space and all things NASA. He would create 3D models for The International Space Station, Hubble Telescope and the Space Shuttle. Even working with NASA's Department of Education in partnership with the USA TODAY Newspapers in Education. This would allow him to also mentor winners of a Middle and High School student completion ion 2011 to commorerate the space shuttle program. Having been a gamer since forever, Robert also was a video game reviewer where his work was published in various newspapers and as part of USA TODAY's Game Hunters Blog. He currently lives in Cape Coral Florida with his artistic daughter, Elise and a lot of cats! Read More Read Less