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Looking for fellow gamers on Bainbridge Island.
Once upon a time (also known as college) I worked for Niebling & Associates. We were sales representatives for Mayfair, Iron Crown, Koplow, Pacesetter, Fantasy Games Unlimited, Theatre of the Mind, Grenadier, and a couple of other companies selling to distributors. I also did a lot of conventions for them in a variety of roles. (The company president, Will Niebling, later became CEO of Mayfair.)
That led to a summer internship with Mayfair, during which I did most of the design on the Elfquest Board Game and a lot of development work on games that never came out. The bad news is the games that didn't come out were definitely better than the Elfquest Board Game.
The Niebling job led to a position with Capital City Distribution. (A job I loved, with people I still love, but with wages no man could love.) About a year after getting there I was put in charge of games. For a couple of years afterward we were the largest games distributor in the U.S. We completely revolutionized how games are sold and distributed to retailers, for the better. While at Capital I launched Game Trade, which looks a lot better now than it did then, and invented the Supertube(tm).
After a short and painful experience working at Valiant comics, I was recruited by Wizard Press to run sales and marketing. While I was there, we launched the monthly magazine Inquest, which recently went under (sniff, sniff). I wrote a couple of articles for the magazine, one of which was reprinted by InQuest in 2007 as one of "the best of all time." It was nice to be in the masthead again after 10 years away. I also brokered Wizard's purchase of the Chicago Comicon, and I remain irritated there isn't more gaming at that convention.
I was then out of games for several years, coming back into the industry to join WizKids as Executive Vice President, where I ran sales and most of marketing. While uncredited, I did invent the 'knockback' that's in HeroClix, damnit! I also gave some of the products interesting names, my favorites are Fire for Effect and Clobberin' Time, invented the "blank base" HeroClix figures that were used as convention giveaways because I'm cheap, massively increased participation in the GAMA Trade Show through bribery, and passed out beer to all the employees every month when we made our sales goals.
I'm no longer in the games industry as a professional, but I still go to GenCon, the annual Fight in the Skies weekend, and I host games at my house once or twice a month on Bainbridge Island, 8 miles west of Seattle.
Lately I've become involved in Metro Seattle Gamers. We have open boardgaming there on Tuesday nights. The club is located just north of downtown Seattle. Please come join us sometime if you're in the Seattle area.
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