From Playing ‘80s Video Games to Founding the Jacobs Visual Media Group: Jim Kessler’s Story

At Jacobs, we operate at the forefront – helping our clients solve some of the world's biggest challenges with solutions that will shape generations and communities to come. 

In 2024, we're showcasing how our people deliver on our strategy by embedding a digital-first way of thinking across Jacobs. 

We connected with Visual Media Director Jim Kessler to learn about his role, how he got into the field and what he likes about working at Jacobs. 

What does it mean to work in digital media?​ 

As a child in the 1980s, I was fascinated by video games, art and science. My passion led me to program graphics and games on a Commodore 64 home computer. Later, as an intern architect, I honed my skills using 2D and 3D design software—and my graduate thesis explored how electronic design methodologies could revolutionize architectural design and construction practices.

How did you get into this field?​

My journey began in residential architectural design in 1993. After completing my graduate degree, I joined Jacobs in 1999 and quickly discovered that my strength was in providing visual media solutions – I founded the Visual Media Group soon after and have continued to develop the team and global presence and capabilities. Since then, I’ve built a global team of 30 artists, technologists and developers across the U.S. and U.K. 

How do you stay current in this area?

Two words—constant exploration! We pioneered the use of Extended Reality (XR) solutions back in 2010 and were using Oculus Virtual Reality (VR) headsets before they hit the mainstream to give our design team and clients the opportunity to explore their proposed design in an immersive environment. Now, we’re diving into AI—the next frontier for advancing our visual communication solutions.  

​What do you like about working at Jacobs?​ 

Jacobs has opened doors worldwide for my career. I've traveled to 11 countries for our projects, gaining unique perspectives on people, cultures and experiences. I'm proud of Jacobs' commitment to innovation and technology across the entire portfolio — and I'm inspired by the diversity of our teams, which fuels our growth and allows us to deliver thoughtful solutions. I’m so proud of Jacobs for being willing to continually invest in innovative and technologically advanced offerings throughout the entire business and portfolio.

What do you want to learn next?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will revolutionize our lives. Developing AI applications aligns with Jacobs’ principles and will allow us to leverage all our knowledge and data from nearly 80 years of successful projects into cutting-edge digital solutions for our clients. Custom-trained large language models will really change the future for us—we have the opportunity to shift the paradigm in order to deliver interactive and informative decision-making tools to our clients, rather than traditional static documents.