Matt Baronak

Matt Baronak was born in Pennsylvania in 1981, and grew up catching crawfish and tadpoles in the back yard. By the age of 14 he was breeding African cichlids in his bedroom. At 17 he started keeping and breeding reptiles. In 2003 he sold off his reptile collection and enlisted in the Army as a veterinary technician. While in the army he got the reptile bug again and bought a pair of leopard geckos. From that pair the collection grew to over 40 adults. In March of 2006 Matt lost all but five of his beloved leopard geckos in a house fire. At that point he knew it was stop or go all in. He became partners with Alberto Cadolini of A&M Gecko in 2006 and grew the collection back up. In 2007 he left the army, having served his 4 years with an honorable discharge, to pursue Gecko breeding full time. 2008 was a big year for the creation of new combination morphs. He coined new names such as Nova, Dreamsickle, and Black Hole. In 2009 Matt Introduced the Typhoon (Rainwater Eclipse) and its combinations. Also in 2009 Matt took over all breeding and day to day operations of A&M geckos. Contrary to rumors, Matt and Alberto didn’t break up as partners; Alberto was just no longer able to work with the geckos due to severe allergies. In 2010, due to the economy and Matt starting college, breeding was scaled back but not stopped. Major projects are the W/Y and all of their combinations and the Marble Eye project. As well as scaling back on the leopard gecko side of the collection, Matt is starting to work with different species including fat tails, cave geckos, some Australian species and few others from around the world. Matt is going to school full time at Penn State University for animal science. He also plays roller hockey for Penn State and helped lead them to the school's first national championship in the sport. Matt also works as a vet tech part time at a local animal hospital.