Stephen Machuga

Stephen “Shanghai Six” Machuga is the founder and CEO of Stack Up, an organization founded in 2015 to bring veterans and civilian supporters together through a shared love of video gaming.

Stephen attended Purdue University on an ROTC scholarship and graduated in 1998 with a degree in Russian linguistics.

In the Army, Stephen was an infantry officer, a military intelligence officer and an Airborne Ranger. He spent most of his service at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division.

In 2003, when he was sent to Iraq with 2nd Infantry Division, video games not only helped Stephen through the seemingly endless 13-month deployment, but also helped ease his struggles with anxiety when he returned home.

After leaving the Army in 2006, Steven moved to Washington D.C. and spent a decade working as a government counter-terrorism analyst and volunteering with charitable organizations in his free time. His work with charities, and the memory of how video games helped him, eventually led him to launch Stack Up to support his brothers and sisters in arms.

Today, Stephen lives in Los Angeles, where he is a member of The Ronald Reagan American Legion Post 283 in Pacific Palisades