Tim Leaton is a recent Virginia Tech graduate with dual honors degrees in Business Management and Communication, where he was a scholarship student and achieved Summa Cum Laude in both degrees. Leaton was also the Undergraduate Representative to Virginia Tech's Alumni Advisory board. Outside of academics, he was a passionate student filmmaker during college. After winning some local film awards, he traveled to Uganda to live at an orphanage. While there, he made a documentary to increase awareness of the orphanage and to raise funds. Months after making the film, Tim read about a national student “issue film” contest in USA Today, judged by Barack Obama (before he was President), Brian Williams, Walter Cronkite, George Clooney, the Dalai Lama, among others. He entered the contest, and won first place among 350 other college-age students. Leaton showed his film at an awards ceremony at the United Nations after being introduced by Craig Moon, President of USA Today. He was also chosen to receive the contest's grand prize, a paid Walt Disney Pictures summer internship, where he was on the sets of feature films and began learning the Hollywood way of making movies. His film was also shown at another awards ceremony in West Hollywood with Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa, and again at a private screening during Sundance of 2007 with Kevin Bacon. Tim has been featured in over 50 media outlets, some of which can be viewed on the media page. In May of 2007, Leaton finished his two degrees at Virginia Tech, and soon moved to Los Angeles. He spent the next year working for Director Ben Stiller at DreamWorks on the film “Tropic Thunder” in the editing department. Ben Stiller wrote Tim a kind letter of recommendation, and "Tropic Thunder" opened well, clinching the number one spot in the US box office for three consecutive weeks.