Marcelo A. Figueroa is one of few individuals who have participated in every tier of the hobby games industry, first as a consumer, then in Retail (All Star Games), in Distribution (ACD Distribution), as Media (Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Magazine, Shadis Magazine, Games Quarterly Magazine), and Publishing (Alderac Entertainment Group, Avalanche Press, Playroom Entertainment). And somewhere in there he found time to be a published writer & game designer. His years of experience have made him a respected industry expert in Customer Service, Marketing, Product Demonstration & Sales, including an Origins Award. Commonly referred to as the "someone you need to know" in hobby games, Marcelo currently works with Sorvent, Inc. as a Talent Manager, helping undiscovered game inventors find publishers for their games, as well as being the Sales Manager for Dan Verssen Games, Warpath Games Distribution, and the Greater Games Industry Catalog.

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Derek visits with Leah Osterhaus of Out of the Box Publishing, touching on a number of great titles and learning a little more about the founding and growth of the company. Leah Osterhaus began working with Out of the Box Publishing 11 years ago test playing games and demoing at trade shows. Since then she earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin- Madison and worked for several years as an inventory specialist at Target Corporation. Several years ago, Out of the Box offered Leah an ownership position in the company as Vice President of Sales. She now works as the Vice President of Marketing and International Sales.

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Derek visits with Loren Coleman at Gen Con 2009, hitting on a number of things from his writing to his company, Catalyst Game Labs. We get a look at some new and coming titles and get to know more about Loren. Loren L. Coleman grew up in the Pacific Northwest. An avid reader, he became infatuated with stories and the art of storytelling at a young age. He wrote creative works as early as twelve years old and began to write actual fiction stories in high school for a Creative Writing class. But it was during his enlistment in the U.S. Navy that he began working seriously at the craft, spending off-time during his deployment in the Persian Gulf writing his first novel. Discharged in 1993, he went to work as a freelance fiction writer and eventually became a full-time novelist. His first novel, Double-Blind, was published in 1998. He has since explored the universes of BattleTech, Magic: The Gathering, Crimson Skies, MechWarrior: Dark Age, Star Trek, and Conan. Around the time of this printing he has sold over twenty novels, a great deal of shorter fiction work, and been involved with several computer games. He is also an award-winning editor and an amateur poet. When he isn?t writing, Loren coaches youth sports, collects far too many DVD?s, holds a black belt in traditional Taekwon Do, and runs Catalyst Game Labs. He has lived in many parts of the country. Currently he resides in Washington State with his wife, Heather Joy, two sons, Talon LaRon and Conner Rhys Monroe, and a young daughter, Alexia Joy. The family owns three obligatory writer?s cats, Rumor, Cleopatra, and Tigerlilly, and one neurotic border collie, Loki.

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Don sits down with Aaron Witten at the GAMA Trade Show. We talk about the trade show, his retail experience, the financial advise he is loaded with and lends to other retailers, and precision dice. Aaron is founder and currently the CEO/CFO of the Gamestation, Inc. in Leitchfield, Kentucky and recently acquired Game Science. He?s also an independent licensed broker, securities principal, and insurance agent with The Legend Group. His education includes a Bachelors of Science degree in Chemistry from Western Kentucky University (1998), with a minor in music. In 1996, he co-founded the first internet service in Grayson County, and was honored with a Kentucky Colonel award that same year. He?s actively involved in the Lions Club and the First Baptist Church. He has served as Treasurer of GAMA since January of 2007, and on the Board of Directors as a Director at Large since June of 2005. He lives in Leitchfield, Kentucky, with his wife, Laura, and son, Luke. During today's show we also mentioned a number of Pulp Gamer products that are available at gamestation.net. These include the mouse pad, the coffee cup, the d20 shot glass, and the d20 shot glass (rolled a 1).

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While on the Caribbean cruise with Gamer Adventures, Don had the opportunity to sit and visit with Larry Roznai, president of Mayfair Games. Games brought up during today's show include Empire Builder, Sutter's Mill, Silverton, Settlers of Catan, and Family Business. Larry Roznai is a German-speaking native of Chicago, and a U.S. Navy veteran. An avid gamer, he hosted weekly game nights for many years before discovering the new generation of fine parlor games. When he brought home Darwin Bromley's Empire Builder game in 1989, his whole family became great fans of Mayfair Games. Larry became informally associated with Mayfair Games when his younger brother Joe--Mayfair's accountant since 1988--brought him to Mayfair's offices in 1989. There, they played or play-tested a host of Mayfair's games. Their first development work was on Eurorails in 1989-90. Both Joe and Larry became fans of the game system and began working on projects in the early 1990s. They later co-designed Nippon Rails. Larry has since designed Australian Rails and developed Lunar Rails and Russian Rails. Larry became a part of Mayfair Games' extended family when he attended Gencon as a company guest in 1990. He began working game shows in his off-hours. Meanwhile, he worked for Honeywell. An electronics specialist, he worked on or oversaw major HVAC projects. His strong operations and management skills impressed the new Mayfair Games ownership team, and in 1999 he left the forced air industry and joined Mayfair Games as a board member, President, and COO. Larry moonlights as the bass player for the highly semi-legendary rock band "Byte," which he co-founded uncounted decades ago. He likes rock-n-roll. It is almost as dear to him as his great family. His wife Bridget and daughter Loren both work for Mayfair Games, while his son Karl attends school and helps play-test Mayfair products. (Of course, having worked for Mayfair Games since 1997, Bridget has longer tenure than her Johnny-come-lately spouse.)

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GAMA welcomes John Ward as its new Executive Director. Don welcomes John to the Inside Track. John holds a Master¹s degree in public administration with an emphasis in fiscal and policy management. His bachelor¹s degree is in criminology, with both degrees from Ohio University. Professionally, Ward has extensive experience in the military and in state government. Ward is a retired Army officer with over 23 years of combined service in the military police and engineer corps. His military experience has provided him opportunities to deploy to Europe, Central America, Korea, and the Persian Gulf for the first Gulf War. Ward also has over 20 years of government service in the criminal justice field, most recently in the juvenile system as the state of Ohio's Bureau Chief of Parole and then Bureau Chief of Community Facilities. In this last role, he supervised 12 small correctional facilities and managed revenue generation for Ohio¹s juvenile corrections agency, as well as working with 12 governing boards in a variety of endeavors. He enhanced volunteer programs, developed data and outcome measures, and was able to assist them in operationalizing both economic and procedural efficiencies. He still serves on a national level working and consulting in the criminal justice arena. Ward is also a small business owner, running his own martial arts studio for more than 16 years. His part-time business/hobby gives him first-hand knowledge of the challenges facing small businesses. In his personal life, Ward is blessed with a loving and supportive wife Angela, their young son Johnathon, and his teenage daughter Nikki, who is with them part-time. They live in the Columbus, Ohio metro area.

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We are extremely excited to be joining Gamer Adventures for a gamer cruise to the Caribbean this spring. To learn more about this and other cruises, we called Kim Maita. Kim just got back from a LARP cruise and was eager to tell us all about it. We then taked about the coming Magic cruise, and our Caribbean Cruise. I hope you will be able to join us in March of 2008 for this cruise for gamers and significant others. Kim was kind enough to share links to some of the activities we can partake in when we hit port. Once the new year rolls around, be sure to check with Kim to get the best rates on these events. We will be hitting Key West, the Cayman Islands, and Jamaica. Mayfair Games will be on board and hosting a Settlers of Catan Tournament. The winner will get a full ride to Gen Con 2009 to compete in the North American finals.

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Don spent some time with John Wick at RinCon in Tucson Arizona. The new Houses of the Blooded was a large part of the conversation, but significant talk was also given to Seventh Sea and Legend of the Five Rings. John is currently a co-owner of the Wicked Dead Brewing Company.

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While at Gen Con, Jeremiah was able to get some time with Richard Borg. He is in more places in the game industry than his name appears and his design ranges from Yatzee Free for All and Liars Dice to BattleLore and Memoir 44. We also mentioned Wyatt Earp, and Stonehenge in today's show. Richard was a blast to visit with and is full of good information. Richard’s professional game credits cover a broad spectrum, which includes over 50 titles. Milton Bradley published his first game, ‘Liars Dice’ a family dice game, in 1988. Following up this initial success were AD&D games (TSR), X-Men games (Pressman Toy) and another hit for Milton Bradley ‘Times to Remember’. In 1993 ‘Liars Dice’ went to Europe as ‘Bluff’ and won the German Prize ‘Spiel des Jahres’. Richard was part of the ‘Star Wars’ customizable card game design team and involved with a number of other collectible card games. Some of his recent designs, that are currently available, include: Hera & Zeus (Rio Grande Games), Memoir ’44 (Days of Wonder), Commands & Colors: Ancients (GMT Games), BattleLore (Fantasy Flight) and Stonehenge Anthology (Paizo Publishing). Richard's newest family game design, Yahtzee Free For All (Parker Brothers) is already receiving acclaim from the game community. Because his body of work does encompass so many age groups and genres, you just may have one or more of Richard’s designs in your personal game collection.

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Jeremiah has the opportunity to visit with Jean Vanaise at Gen Con to talk about music, the economy, and of course, games. Jean has been producing games with his own company Flying Turtle for years but has also produced for such companies as West End Games, Iron Crown Enterprises, Ravensburger, and Mayfiar Games. Some of his titles you may be familiar with, to include Shark, Dicemaster, the Hobbit Adventure Boardgame, and the most recent Egyptian themed tile game, Horus.

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Jeremiah catches Ethan Skemp at Gen Con. Ethan has a long list of credits with White Wolf. There is a lot of talk given to the contrast between the new and the old versions of the many White Wolf roleplaying games, such as Vampire, Werewolf, and Changeling.

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Jeremiah had the pleasure of visiting one of the biggest and baddest men in gaming, Erik Yaple. Erik has taken over the Monsterpocalypse project with Privateer Press. This is a very appealing game of monstrous combat. He caught him between games at Gen Con where he spent a lot of his weekend showing the game with a horde of fans.

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Jeremiah was able to catch Nicolas Logue at Gen Con and uncovered a wealth of interesting thoughts. Nick talks about the crossover between improv acting and roleplaying and about several projects he has been working on. We most recently know have been seeing his work on Paizo's Pathfinder, several great articles in Kobold Quarterly, the Open Design Project, and of course, Sinister Adventures. We wish him well on his adventures to come and hope to see him again very soon. Nicolas Logue works for Paizo Publishing and Wizards of the Coast as a freelance game designer. He has also recently launched his own design studio: Sinister Adventures (www.sinisteradventures.com). Nick has done extensive work on Paizo’s new Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting and the Eberron Campaign Setting for Wizards of the Coast. His recent credits include numerous adventures and articles in Dungeon and Dragon magazines, Crown of the Kobold King, Voyage of the Golden Dragon, Eyes of the Lich Queen, Monster Manual V, Dragons of Eberron, Carnival of Tears, Hook Mountain Massacre, Edge of Anarchy, Hangman’s Noose and City of Stormreach. Nicolas is also a Fulbright Fellow, an award winning stage actor, produced playwright, budding screenwriter, fight director and a Full Instructor with Dueling Arts International who has performed and taught theatre and stage combat in New York, Honolulu and throughout China. He is a member of the avant garde theatre troupe Cruel Theatre, based in Hawai’i and Manhattan. His next horizon of adventure: Nick was recently hired to head up the World Theatre Program at the University of Essex’s East 15 Acting School. England beware.

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While at Gen Con, Jeremiah was able to to spend some time at the White Wolf/CCP booth and visit with Justin Achilli. We all had a great time with the whole crew and are always eager to get caught up with the newest releases. With Justin's long list of credits at White Wolf, we were able to learn about the evolution of the game over time and catch a glimpse at what may be coming in the future. Justin Achilli is a game designer for CCP Games. He comes from a pen-and-paper roleplaying games background, in which he developed the award-winning Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: the Requiem properties. He's now working on CCP's World of Darkness property. When he's not playing video games, he enjoys nightclub DJing, cooking, writing, and making rude gestures toward whoever's playing against the Dallas Cowboys this week.

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Jeremiah was able to visit with Pete Fenlon at Gen Con about his roots in the gaming industry and the workings of his current position at Mayfair Games.  Pete started with a love for Middle Earth's a cartographer and an avid roleplayer.  His professional career in games began with with Rolemaster at Iron Crown Enterprises.  Now, he is the CEO and studio director for Mayfair Games.  

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While at Gen Con, Jeremiah was able to spend some time with Corey Konieczka of Fantasy Flight Games. Corey Konieczka has designed numerous strategy and adventure games for Fantasy Flight Games. He has worked on numerous other strategy games and expansions including Warrior Knights (2006), Tide of Iron (2007), Battlestar Galactica (2008), and the Origins Award Winning StarCraft: The Boardgame (2007). Corey works as a senior game designer, developer and producer for Fantasy Flight Games. Originally from New Hampshire, Corey and his wife Shannon now live in the frosty depths of Minnesota.

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Don was able to talk Star Wars with freelancer, Sterling Hershey at Gen Con. We visit on a number of aspects of the roleplaying game, how it has grown, and how it compares to other games. We also touch on his work in the miniatures game. Sterling Hershey is a freelance game designer for Wizards of the Coast and its Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition and Star Wars Miniatures games. His recent work includes the newly-released Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, the upcoming Force Unleashed Campaign Guide, and the Legacy Era Campaign Guide. He is a regular contributor to the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars webpage, producing scenarios and previews for the Star Wars Miniatures game, as well as adventures and other articles for the RPG. Previously, Sterling was a regular freelancer for West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. You can read more about gaming in a galaxy far, far away in his starwars.com blog, Delusions of Grandeur. Sterling somehow finds the time to practice architecture when he isn't gaming or writing. He lives in the Midwest with his wife, Mary.

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While at Origins, Don was able to sit down with Dave Wallace. You may have heard Dave on many of the GAMA Trade Show Seminars. He and his wife, Kelli, run a small chain of stores and do a considerable amount of work for GAMA helping other retailers get started. He has also just recently taken a position for the online store, Troll and Toad.

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Don brings us another great conversation from Origins. This time he visits with Kenneth Hite. Kenneth has written a number of our favorite games, but today we talk mostly about Trail of Cthulhu. Kenneth Hite has designed, written, or co-authored more than 70 books, roleplaying games, and supplements, including the Origins Award-winning Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG, GURPS Infinite Worlds, and Call Of Cthulhu d20. He has been Line Developer for Chaosium's Nephilim and Last Unicorn Games' original-series Star Trek RPG, and has written for White Wolf, Pinnacle, Atlas, and many other companies. His most recent works include the Mythos miscellany Dubious Shards (available in print and PDF), the Trail Of Cthulhu RPG from Pelgrane Press, chapters in Wild Talents and Grim War from ArcDream, and Adventures Into Darkness, a Lovecraftian Golden Age superhero sourcebook available in PDF. He explores the Higher Weirdness roughly biweekly in his "Suppressed Transmission" column in Pyramid Magazine (http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid); it has been collected in two volumes. Since 1997, he has written "Out of the Box," an RPG industry news and review column most recently at www.gamingreport.com.

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Don was able to sit down with Fred Hicks at Origins to spend some time talking about our game. We have all come to the conclusion that he would be one of our first picks to have at our table. Fred Hicks is one of the minds behind Evil Hat Productions, a small-press publisher of roleplaying games, is the author of Don't Rest Your Head, and is a co-author of Spirit of the Century. He also works part-time as the customer service desk for Indie Press Revolution and as a freelance layout consultant. Fred is not at all certain how it is he lucked into doing all this as his job, but he's certain he has his lovely wife to thank for it.

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Don had a great opportunity at Origins to visit with Jeff Bellinger, the designer of Playroom Entertainment's Killer Bunnies. Jeff was full of stories making it an easy and entertaining conversation. Jeff Bellinger began his life in Jersey and spent many hours developing games as he grew up. He took those games with him to the United States Navy to see the world until he was finally dropped off in San Diego where he created Saren's Stuff to take his games to market. Killer Bunnies caught the attention of Playroom Entertainment in 2002 and has become nothing less than a phenomenon. Jeff teaches math during the school year and continues to travel extensively. He still does most of his work with a paper and pencil and takes advantage of quiet rainy days to work.

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Don had a great time talking to Phil Chase at Origins. Phil was joined by his son Auden, who was equally as entertaining. We spoke on a variety of educational topics, emphasizing linguistics in a way we had not yet explored. We also talked about a lot of games, even outside of Phil’s designs. Some of them include Set, Lord of the Rings, Settlers of Catan, Shear Panic, Hey! Where’s My Fish!, and Down with the King. Phil Chase has been an educator for 14 years, working now for the State of Michigan's Department of Education. His board game design career, under the pen name P. R. Chase, started in 2002 with the release of Theophrastus with Mayfair Games. In 2006, Grand Tribunal was published by Atlas Games, and Gemstones followed in 2007 by Kadon Enterprises. He's a proud father of two boys, ages 7 and 8, who play board games at home as avidly as he does.

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Don was able to spend some time with Michelle Nephew at Origins this year. The visit was phenomenal. We learned at least a little about a bunch of Atlas Games titles, talked some about women in gaming, but mostly just learned more about Michelle and her gaming life. After years of playing Shadowrun and Vampire in college, Michelle Nephew's RPG editing career began in 2000 with Atlas Games' Three Days to Kill, the very first adventure available for sale under the Open Game License. She followed this up by authoring her own d20 adventure, The Tide of Years, in 2001. While continuing to write and edit gaming material, she finished her Ph.D. at UW-Milwaukee, writing her dissertation on the topic of authorship and roleplaying games. A chapter from her dissertation has since been published in Gaming As Culture, a collection of academic essays on RPGs. With the title "Tenured Editor," Michelle wears many hats at Atlas Games today, including production coordinator, card and board game developer/editor, layout monkey, advertising/marketing coordinator, convention support organizer, and Special Ops demo team coordinator.

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Don visits with Eddy Webb and John Chambers of White Wolf. Topics touched on range from the White Wolf culture to the range of roleplaying games we often find ourselves immersed in. Eddy officially started in the RPG industry in 2002 by working with Cynthia Celeste Miller on "Cartoon Action Hour" (which was later nominated for an Origins Award for Best RPG of 2003). He worked on projects for his own company (Spectrum Games) as well as freelance for other companies such as Deep7 and Comic Images. He was asked to develop and write White Wolf’s first joint electronic and print-on-demand product, "Mind’s Eye Theatre: Awakening," in 2006. After the book's release in 2007, he was hired to work full-time as the Alternative Product Developer. He currently lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with his wife, his roommate, his pug dog and his very grumpy cat. John Chambers has been a fixture at White Wolf Game Studio for a decade. From his humble beginnings as an intern, John rose through the ranks to develop two of the role-playing game industry's most popular properties, Exalted (revamping the game for its acclaimed second edition) and Scion (a game conceptualized and designed by John from the ground up). Riding high on his win of Best New Game for Scion at last year's Gen Con Ennie Awards, John looks forward developing role-playing games for a long time to come.

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While at the GAMA Trade Show, Don had a chance to sit down with Phil Lacefield Jr. about several aspects of the industry. Apart from trying to make a couple of predictions, we mostly talked about the Origins Awards. You will be able to vote on the Origins Awards at Origins in Columbus, Ohio. Phil Lacefield Jr. has been an active sales manager, marketing guru, writer, line editor, designer and layout guy for game companies such as Agents of Gaming, US Playing Card Co., Journeyman Press, Score Entertainment, Reaper Miniatures and many more. In 2001 (against the advice of his therapist) he founded Sacred Cheese Productions in order to consult on issues of sales and marketing to game companies big and small. SCP also runs the legendary Origins-To-GenCon caravan every year. In February of 2006, Phil took the plunge and moved to Seattle to take up the mantle of Sales Manager for Paizo Publishing. Now safely ensconced in his mountain hideaway, Phil continues to obsess over his precious Saab collection, dote on his precious tropical fish tanks and insists on wearing a full kilt on random occasions.

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