Thunderbird Entertainment’s kids and family division Atomic Cartoons has promoted two people to lead animation. Both based in Vancouver, Nadine Westerbarkey (pictured left) has been upped to head of 2D animation, while Chris Buckley (pictured right) will head of 3D animation.

Westerbarkey has 25 years of experience as an animation and storyboard artist, which she will use to oversee the production of both owned IP and service projects for the company. Prior to this promotion, Westerbarkey was the animation director for Atomic and worked on Disney’s 101 Dalmatian Street and Netflix’s Hilda. Before she joined Atomic, Westerbarkey was animation director at DHX, and prior to that she was a supervising animation director at Bardel Entertainment. Throughout her career, she has held multiple roles at Disney, where she produced Lilo and Stich 2.

Buckley, meanwhile, has 23 years of industry experience, and will also oversee the production of both owned IP and service projects. Previously, he served as animator director on multiple projects, including LEGO Jurassic World: The Secret Exhibit. He joined Atomic in 2017 after serving as a senior animator at Industrial Light & Magic, a lead animator at Animal Logic, and a supervising animation at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

The promotions follow Matthew Berkowitz hiring at Thunderbird as its new chief creative officer.