Officers & Key Personnel
The Boardgame Players Association is governed by a dedicated team of officers and key personnel who volunteer their expertise to support the global tabletop community. These individuals manage the organizational infrastructure and long-term planning required to host premier competitive events like the World Boardgaming Championships. By balancing administrative duties with a deep passion for the hobby, this leadership group ensures that the BPA remains a stable and welcoming home for board gamers of all skill levels.
Lewis, Andy
Andy runs the day-to-day operations of a plastic wear and friction testing and test equipment manufacturing company and is VP of GMT Games responsible for Game Submissions and Development. His two jobs and growing family keep him very busy. He started gaming in 1971 with D-Day. He has attended Avaloncon/WBC for 19 years and been a GM for 17. He owes a lot to this convention since it is directly responsible for bringing his wife into the hobby. His position with GMT arose from his desire to help the hobby by playtesting for AH, and then GMT which led to developing Saratoga, Paths of Glory, and others.
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Gutermuth, Ken
Ken retired from CommScope in March 2017 as VP, Corporate Planning, Analysis & Systems in Hickory, North Carolina to become Convention Director for WBC. He has been gaming since 1975 when he played his first game of Panzer Leader. Ken has attended Avaloncon/WBC since its inception and has been a GM and Assistant GM for many titles. His achievements at Avaloncon led to his election in 1997 to the Avaloncon Hall of Fame. Ken was Convention Director for BPA’s Enlightenment mini-con. He is one of the BPA Auctioneers, and he handles the accounting portion of the BPA auction.
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Wojtaszczyk, Laurie
Laurie is currently the Manager of Data and Special Projects at the Diocese of Buffalo after “retiring” from being a principal and teacher for 20 years. Laurie has been attending WBC for over 25 years. During that time she has GM’d many Juniors games and has been an assistant GM with various adult games. She also spent 10 of those years as the Junior Coordinator and developed friendships with many of the members. Her own two boys grew up at WBC and she knows how important the family atmosphere that WBC offers is to other families.
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Drummond, Andrew
Andrew is a Manager at Rogers Communications in Toronto, ON, Canada. There he manages strategic pricing of large enterprise telecom accounts. He has been a gamer his entire life from the age of 4 constantly bugging his parents to play chess or whatever other game he could find. At age 9 he discovered Axis and Allies and in high school Diplomacy which opened him to the greater world of competitive gaming. In 2015 he wrote an article for his local game store entitled “WBC: The Nirvana of Serious Boardgaming” which sums up how he feels about the convention. While he tends much more to the Eurogaming side now, Andrew still likes to ensure that he spends some of WBC playing games that are entirely new to him. Andrew is also well known at WBC for his cosplay as he GMs various games including Orleans, Can’t Stop, Jr. Splendor, and Jr. Facts in Four.
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Kibler, Charles
Charles is currently a freelance graphic designer, specializing in art for board-wargame components. He worked as an artist and designer at Avalon Hill Game Company from 1981 to 1995, and then at several Baltimore-area software firms. He designed “Red Barricades,” the first historical module for the ASL system, as well as the original rules & missions for ASL Solitaire. At the WBC, Charles & his wife Judy can usually be found behind the registration desk. Charles is an avid American Civil War re-enactor, donning blue or gray as the situation demands, and prefers the authentic/progressive ACW events.
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Roppolo, Rebecca
Rebecca is a research scientist at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, specializing in evaluation and quality improvement. She began attending World Boardgaming Championships in 2000 as a junior thanks to her aunt, Kaarin Engelmann, and has attended every year since. Growing up in the boardgaming community has been immensely influential in her life and Rebecca is committed to ensuring the continued success of the WBC/BPA. She has GM’d and Assistant GM’d several adult and junior’s tournaments over the years and was awarded Sportsman of the Year in 2007.
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Gleaton, Ralph
Ralph is currently the managing partner of Gleaton Wyatt Hewitt, PA a law firm in Greenville, South Carolina, that focuses on acting as a general counsel to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial owned businesses. Prior to going into private practice 11 years ago, he was a prosecutor in South Carolina handling cases from petty misdemeanors to capitol murder. He began playing any game he could find when he was young but went into a game hiatus when he entered college for lack of people to play with. Fortunately for him, when he moved to Greenville he met the Greenville Mafia and plays all manor of games with them weekly. He attended his first WBC in 2001 and has been to every WBC since.
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Byrd, Megan
Update Pending
Buckwalter, Scott
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Learn more about the past leadership, Elections, and history that help shape the Boardgame Players Association experience.