For the last 30 years Gary McGroarty has worked internationally in music, film, television, animation and multimedia. During that time, he has held numerous creative and executive positions and has worked extensively in Europe, the USA and Canada. He was born in Saint Boniface, Manitoba of Irish and Métis parents.

After film school, Gary started off in the music business as manager of the band CANO that produced six albums for the A&M label from 1976 to 1984. The band won numerous awards not only for its performances and recordings, but also for its self-created album cover designs.

With partner Hall Train, he formed a production company in Toronto specializing in animation and special effects. He spent from 1987 to 1990 producing television show openings, music videos and commercials. They won numerous Canadian and International awards and in 1990 won two gold CLIOs for their Hack Attack commercial.

From 1990 to 1992, Gary designed, wrote, produced and directed distance learning and interactive training programmes for Toronto's Blue Owl Publishing. Blue Owl's partners in this venture were the provincial governments Ontario Training Corporation and the UK based CDI Training, a division of Philips Media. He was in the forefront in the use of interactive video in this emerging field.

In 1993 Gary joined Epic Interactive Media, the UK's largest multimedia communications company as the Director of Consumer Publishing. He reported directly to the owners and was responsible for acquisition of intellectual property rights including joint ventures and co-productions. He negotiated worldwide distribution deals with several major multinationals and also formulated marketing strategies. He oversaw title design and directly supervised 6 development teams producing for both the home computer and platform markets and also executive produced feature films and television series. Epics children's titles (both educational and entertainment), games and music programmes were produced in 10 languages and released in over 20 countries. In addition to his executive responsibilities, he also designed, wrote and produced titles, including the interactive companion releases to the Warner Brothers animated feature Thumbelina. This children's CD-ROM won international awards including being named one of the fifty best children's titles of all time by Newsweek magazine.

After leaving Epic in 1996, he was part of the creative team behind the Classic Albums television and interactive series. Classic Albums tells the story behind the creation of some of the most popular albums of the last century. During that time, he was a founder of Purple Fridge Communications in Toronto, a fully integrated television, audio and interactive production facility.

In 2000 Gary completed directing, writing and producing Stand and Be Counted, a 4-hour TV series with David Crosby (of CSN&Y). The series tells the story of the role of music and musicians in the political activism of the 20th century and features over a hundred musical performances. Stand and Be Counted is a Gold Circle Films production, co-produced by Wave Entertainment (John Cossette, Producer of the Grammy Awards show and Craig Moody) for the benefit of the United States Fund for UNICEF. Stand and Be Counted premiered in the United States as two 2-hour prime time specials on Discovery's TLC.

He has directed a two-hour, prime-time TV special based on the critically acclaimed book Before the Gold Rush by Nicholas Jennings. The aim of the TV special is to tell the story of the birth of Canadian music in the 1960s—a time when there was no Juno Awards, no Canadian content regulations, no MuchMusic and, in fact, not much of a music industry at all. The 2-hour special entitled Shakin’ All Over aired in January 2006, on the CBC. He is currently at work on the next parts of the series (the 70’s and 80’s). They will be broadcast by the CBC in early 2008, as two 2-hour Specials. This is a unique co-production between Montreal’s Amerimage Spectra and Vancouver’s Soapbox Productions.