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After an earlier stint at DC Comics and freelancing one animated script, Greg became a development associate (a very junior executive) at the then-small development department at Disney TV Animation. His boss went away for what was supposed to be two weeks and ended up being six months. Since his boss' secretary was shared with publicity and he was left as the only executive in the division, Greg started aiding his boss' superior and became "indispensable." Greg admits it wasn't the path he sought -- he'd known since second grade he wanted to write -- but the job gave him regular contact with writers and story-editors (the distinctions will be discussed in Part Three). It also didn't allow him time to work on his own material.
Greg's job duties included managing script coordinators, writers, story-editors and producers; he also regularly evaluated new and existing talent (writers and artists) for their suitability to current projects. New projects would come under his scrutiny. He also evaluated studio efficiency, to find places for improvement and ensure that the products being made were what had been promised.
When I asked Greg what he thought someone in development needed in their background, he replied, "I don't think there are any rules. Definitely helps to have a liberal arts education. It helps to have done some writing yourself. Sometimes you don't get hired for that reason. I've known people who won't hire people on the executive track because those people were writers."
Greg moved from being in development to producing with the series Gargoyles, which still airs in reruns on Toon Disney (check http://www.toondisney.com for a current schedule). Gargoyles began as a notion Greg explored with his development team. Originally developed as a comedy about medieval gargoyles awakened in the present, it took two years to sell and became an adventure show different from other Disney projects. The timeframe caused a lot of turnover in the development staff; also, many talents Disney normally relied on weren't right for the project.
They found a line producer to get artwork for Gargoyles underway, but needed a creative head. Greg had a "passion for the property" and stepped in to drive it forward. The first couple of writers didn't pan out, and Greg says, "as we worked on story I became involved in a more hands-on way than I normally would, but we had the green light and needed to keep things moving." He began making decisions producers make, not to overstep bounds but because there wasn't a producer.
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