Anne Westfall

Westfall began computer programming at the age of 30. Before moving into the video game industry, Westfall worked as a programmer for a civil engineering firm Morton Technology, where she developed the first microcomputer-based program designed to help lay out subdivisions.

In 1981, Westfall and her husband, Jon Freeman, left Epyx, the video game developer and publisher her husband co-founded just three years earlier. Westfall cited a desire to learn assembly language and to work on the Atari 800 as one reason for their departure from Epyx.

Together with game designer Paul Reiche III, they started Free Fall Associates to make computer games free of the politics existing at the now larger Epyx. Together with Jon and Reiche, she helped develop the two award-winning and highly acclaimed games Archon and Archon II, handling the brunt of the programming work. It took six months to develop this game, and many of the game details were held constant from the original idea.

For six years, Westfall was on the board of directors of the Computer Game Developers Conference.

Eventually, Westfall and her husband Jon renamed the company "Free Fall Games." For the last few years, though, Westfall has spent her time as a healthcare professional who converts voice recordings from healthcare providers into documents on medical records, also known as a medical transcriptionist.