A Tribute to Aaron Arvia by Brian Torney

Rumors spread like molasses, trickling whispers among his friends and colleagues. We called bullshit. You’ve got it wrong. He got laid off ages ago. No, his father-in-law passed away, again, months ago. We just saw him last week. But, in the end, it was true. Aaron Arvia —accomplished toymaker, talented engineer, musician, photographer, husband, son, father and friend— passed from this world on Saturday, July 20, 2024, just two days after his 48th birthday, of a sudden heart attack.

Aaron Arvia. Toy industry luminaries likely can’t place the name. Inside big toy manufacturers like Hasbro, where Aaron spent 9 years designing and engineering animatronic, electronic and other high complexity toys, most talented individuals toil in virtual anonymity. It’s the nature of large workforces that certain personalities receive extraneous external congratulations while others, often more talented and hardworking, strive through it all virtually unrecognized by the larger industry. There’s sort of a “nice guy finishes last” mentality sometimes, even unwilfully. Make no mistake, however: Aaron Arvia truly deserves illumination.

If you don’t know Aaron, you might know some of his toys. Aaron spent most of his career outside toys doing research and development, scouting technology, and problem solving manufacturing and industrial engineering challenges at companies like Electrolux, makers of Frigidaire appliances. Aaron capitalized on his extensive manufacturing experience for toys when he joined Hasbro in 2015. Early on, Aaron collaborated with other engineers, designers, digital producers, and marketers to bring Fur Real Makers ProtoMax to market. Encouraging girls and kids in general to code and create, ProtoMax marked a momentous achievement for Hasbro —an item intended for social betterment, not just holiday sales. Just a few years later, Aaron led mechanical engineering on one of his all-time favorite products, Star Wars Ultimate Copilot Chewie, also from the Fur Real Friends brand. Featuring electronic sounds and behaviors as well as adorable animatronic movements (including a lifelike roaring muzzle), Chewie proved so beloved as to win Plush Toy of the Year in 2019. Aaron continued living his Star Wars dream as mechanical engineer and programmer on an animatronic Baby Yoda toy from The Mandalorian, Wild Ridin Grogu. Aaron’s Grogu moved at the head and feet, behaving differently when placed in the included plastic baby pram.  

Most recently, Hasbro announced Dance ‘N Crawl Spidey, an animatronic Spider-Man that dances to the brand-new Patrick Stump song “Do the Spidey” when standing up and crawls like a spider when turned on its side. Aaron’s final toy prior to being laid off among a thousand other employees in 2023, Dance ‘N Crawl Spidey might be Aaron’s most personal toy creation. Anyone experienced making Spider-Man toys knows it’s extremely difficult to come up with great new feature ideas for giftable, holiday driver Spidey items. Collaborating with a larger team, Aaron put his maker skills to work with not just a brilliantly simple concept, but a functional prototype showing off the feasibility of the feature. Dance ‘N Crawl Spidey and “Do the Spidey” are planned to integrate with new episodes of Spidey & Friends. It’s sure to make Hasbro millions this holiday season.

Those of us who worked closely with Aaron know his toys, however brilliant, hardly defined him. Diminutive like one of JRR Tolkien’s famous hobbits, Aaron also shared those creatures’ love of parties, conversant ease, musicality, cheerful inebriation, and secret love of adventures. On a rare night away from his beloved family, we might join Aaron at a pub, backyard barbeque, or pool hall. Half a dozen drinks in, Aaron (who always brought his own pool cue and geeky glasses) still defeated all comers at the table. He’d ease around the table, chatting up coworkers and pals, making new friends at adjoining tables, singing whatever song happened to play over the speakers.

Kindness defined Aaron’s life. If a friend looked distressed, Aaron seemed magnetically attracted. No matter the damage, Aaron easily brought a smile to that troubled face. My favorite memory of Aaron will stick with me forever. During the isolation of the pandemic, I decided to try my hand at home improvement –a bathroom remodel. No sooner had I updated Aaron about my progress via text message then he showed up, ringing the doorbell. Knowing I was about to tear down tile walls, Aaron hoisted a Mjolnir-like mallet over his shoulder. His grin told me Aaron didn’t want to miss out on a smashing good time. Moments later, Aaron bounded into the bathroom and took his first swing. The house shook.

“Check it out!” laughed Aaron.

I peeked in around the doorframe.

“Wrong wall,” I said.

“Well,” Aaron replied, sizing up the craterous hole in an otherwise pristine and tile-free wall, “figure I’ll teach you how to do drywall, then.”

Since learning of Aaron’s passing, those of us who loved him have been bombarded with new stories of his generosity, calmness, devotion, and kindness. A peer mentor who both listened and shared. A singer of bottomless bass. A humble maker. A jovial trickster. An attentive ear. A companion in grieving. A forgiving fishing partner, even after an accidental tip over.

Whether you knew him for an instant or a decade, all of us knew how much Aaron’s wife Katy and son Brayden meant to him. Those who counted on Aaron’s patient listening might not have known the perilous life journey he shared with his beloved family. Illness and a sense of impending tragedy followed them. But, together, they kept themselves standing. If life tried to knock Aaron down, he wrapped it in a bear hug and kept on standing. Aaron Arvia stood diminutive, but never was he a small man.   

Once Aaron’s friends and co-workers knew the truth of his passing, a text message chain gathered for those of us able to make the trip from Rhode Island to South Carolina, where Aaron’s family resides, to attend his service. There, Aaron, Katy, and Brayden’s family greeted us with the warm kindness we recognized as inherently Aaron. They asked for our stories, and we listened to theirs, knowing we lost a friend of 9 years while they lost a nephew, brother-in-law, cousin, son, husband, and father. Aaron’s father, a smiling fellow weighed down by unimaginable loss, reminisced with us about Aaron’s childhood.

“He loved Star Wars, and he loved sports,” he said, decked out in blue and white gear celebrating Aaron’s favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs. “Getting that job at Hasbro meant so much to him. His Millennium Falcon might have been his favorite toy.”

That checked out. Aaron kept his original Kenner Millennium Falcon vehicle on prominent display in his basement home office beside other vintage Star Wars toys and his newer obsession, Hasbro’s Star Wars Black Series action figures.

“There’s another one I remember,” said Aaron’s father. “A Major Morgan. Do you know what that is?”

We shook our heads. I Googled the name on my iPhone and came face to face with Playskool’s Major Morgan, a blue, red, and yellow electronic organ in the vague plastic shape of a marching band member.

“Aaron went away with that thing and didn’t come back until he’d memorized the song,” said Aaron’s father. Music, electronics, and toys…three of Aaron’s loves in one.

Aaron’s family asked us about Aaron’s final days at Hasbro. Ever emotionally open, Aaron told his entire family about that terrible day in September 2023 when he found himself seated before his boss and a Human Resources rep, learning that his dream job no longer belonged to him. The looks on his family’s faces told me they viewed this event as totally incongruous to the brilliant, creative, hardworking man they loved. What could I say? We, colleagues familiar with his incredible abilities, agreed wholeheartedly. A company in strife and under new leadership decided to upend over 1,000 lives and the lives of their loved ones. A humble, hardworking, creative man who cherished providing for his family proved to be one casualty. Yet again, through adversity, Aaron showed his quality. Aaron consoled the others who lost their jobs that day, including me, despite his own humbling loss.

Exhausted and depleted after the service and family gathering, we retired to our hotel. In the lobby bar, the few of us held one last toast to our vanished friend. We slept. We departed for the airport. Wheels up, Aaron’s passing felt no more real than it had as a rumor. Aaron’s heart was his best part. I remembered Aaron’s big grins, his goofy giggle, and his bear hugs. Then I thought of Aaron’s son, Brayden. Even on one of the toughest days of Brayden’s life, he gave his father’s visiting friends that same Aaron Arvia kindness. He grinned a big grin, guffawed a goofy giggle, and wrapped us each in bear hugs.

I guess Aaron’s big heart lives on.

Note: Those who loved Aaron started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his son’s college fund. If his story touched you, please consider giving at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/aaronarvia-braydenfund