Directors, Advisors, and Committee Members

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Previous Directors and Advisors

BIOS - DIRECTORS

Scott Ferguson leads a team of engineers at a leading technology and industrial firm. Scott's interest in amusement technology, experience in engineering design and problem solving, and location in Silicon Valley, the home of much of modern amusement technology development, combines to bring a modern scientist's and inventor's perspective to the appreciation of mechanical and electronic amusement.

Greg McLemore is a lifelong enthusiast of coin-operated and amusement technology, history, and culture. Amongst Greg's other responsibilities, he serves as the Executive Director of the International Arcade Museum, of Penny Arcadia, and of the Vintage Arcade Preservation Society (a.k.a. the Video Arcade Preservation Society). He also serves as a director of the relatively new International Arcade Museum Library non-profit, as the Editor in Chief of the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV), as a life member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and a participant in the IGDA Game Preservation SIG. An active philanthropist, Greg supports numerous local organizations covering a variety of interests including Descanso Gardens, a leading Southern California botanical gardens on which Greg serves on the Board of Trustees. In recent years, Greg has assembled a leading collection of amusement and arcade art, history, memorabilia, and machines, including the first three floor model coin-operated arcade machines made by man (each the only specimen surviving), the first coin-operated kiddie ride, and numerous coin-op and console video game prototypes and rarities. Greg grew up playing an Atari 2600 and text adventure and arcade games on an Apple IIe. In 1983 he launched one of the first online electronic bulletin board systems primarily serving videogame enthusiasts. The service quickly added one of the first text adventure games playable online available to anyone in the world with a modem, and just a few years later, one of the on-line role-playing adventure games featuring simultaneous multi-person play. Today his favorite machines to play are penny arcade machines made before 1930, and "Golden Age" coin-operated video games made between 1978 and 1983. Besides his involvement with arcade history preservation, he is a highly successful serial entrepreneur. Greg lives with his family in Los Angeles, California.

Rob Hampton hold a leadership position at a major wall street bank. Rob brings to the board a broad perspective on modern console videogame platforms, game offerings, and modern player psychology and sociology. Combined with this background, Rob brings with him many years experience in Human Resources, Conflict Resolution, and Organizational Development.

Carl Oppedahl is technically trained in physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, and software engineering, having earned a bachelor's degree with a double major in physics with honors and mathematics with honors from Grinnell College in 1978 and a law degree in 1981 from Harvard Law School. Upon graduation from Grinnell College he was co-awarded the Linn Smith Prize for Excellence in Mathematics. He has written and prosecuted numerous patent applications in electrical engineering, computer software system, and mechanical areas. He is an active computer programmer and holds an Extra-class amateur radio license. Carl serves as an adjunct professor at University of Denver School of Law, teaching Advanced Patent Law. He served for many years on the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute's Patent Bar Review Course and served as an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law School where he taught Advanced Patent Law. He has lectured in continuing legal education (CLE) programs in New York, Texas, California, Georgia and Colorado. Carl has a peer rating by Martindale-Hubbell of "AV". Carl Oppedahl has been named chair of the Patent Cooperation Treaty Issues Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Mr. Oppedahl is admitted to many courts and has litigation experience. He is admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and before the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. He belongs to the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Mr. Oppedahl is a frequent speaker on intellectual property subjects and has many publications.

Ken Rubin is an experienced entrepreneur who has started, operated, managed, and successfully sold businesses. He has had a life long interest in coin-operated and amusement inventions, history, restoration technologies, and enhancing public education of the same. Ken published the groundbreaking reference book "Drop Coin Here" in 1979, which led to the dramatic interest in this area, growth of the coin-op collector community, and over 100 follow-up books by nearly as many authors. Ken continues to publish coin-op and amusement related articles in both general and specialty publications.

Ed Adlum started his career writing about the arcade and amusement industries for publications such as "Cashbox" magazine. In 1975 he founded "Replay" Magazine, the leading trade publication for the coin-operated arcade and amusement industries. He continues to publish it to this day.

Ralph Baer, born March 8, 1922, is an engineer and a pioneer in the field of interactive video games. Bear invented the concept of playing games on an ordinary TV set in 1966. In the 1960s, Baer worked for defense contractor Sanders Associates. Although his primary focus was to develop military systems, Baer developed a number of games that became part of his "Brown Box," a multi-game console, including ping-pong, handball, soccer, volleyball, target shooting, checkers, and golf. Sanders licensed the technology to Magnavox, which introduced the Odyssey system in 1972. The Odyssey game was the videogame console and started that industry. Baer continued to work on interactive games during his years at Sanders, in addition to continuing his work on military electronics. A well-known hand-held electronic game he developed was Simon, a single-chip, microprocessor controlled memory game introduced in 1978. Born in Germany, Baer came to the United States as a teenager in 1938. After serving in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence during WWII, he attended the American Television Institute of Technology, receiving his B.S. in TV Engineering in 1949. After a brief stint at Loral, Baer worked at Sanders until 1987 before devoting all of his time to his own consulting business. Baer has over 150 US and world-wide patents, mostly for Consumer Electronics products. In 2004, Baer was a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2010.

Fridolin Beisert is an associate professor at Art Center College of Design who teaches creative problem solving, design thinking methodologies and sustainable design strategies. A graduate of Art Center, Beisert earned his B.S. in Product and Entertainment Design in 1998 and was recognized with the title of "Distinction," the College's highest graduating honor. After graduating, he went on to design video game titles for Sony Playstation in Tokyo. He also started his own design consultancy, Red Thread, whose clients include Designworks, Ford Motor Company, Mattel, Earthlink, Heineken, Phillips, Sony, Autodesk and Grey Advertising. He recently completed his Master's Degree at Art Center's Graduate Industrial Design program with a thesis entitled "Creative Strategies."

Shannon Donnelly was an early pioneer in the field of interactive fiction, expressed in the form of video games and Internet websites. Most notably, her writing and interactive design skills were instrumental in the creation of the 1983 "Space Ace," laser disc videogame the follow-up to the highly successful laser disc video game "Dragon's Lair" to which she also contributed. She also wrote "Thayer's Quest," the first laser disc videogame designed for home use in the Halcyon (console) home game system created by RDI Video Systems. In addition to her work in interactive media, she is an award-winning author of children's books, romance novels, and non-fiction books.

Raiford Guins is an Associate Professor of Digital Cultural Studies at Stony Brook State University of New York. He is also a founding principal editor with the Journal of Visual Culture and curator of the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection with Kristen J. Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives. Raiford's research interests are history of technology, videogame history and preservation, material and object culture, visual culture studies, design studies and design history, media governance, and popular culture. He is currently researching a book entitled Game Saved: An Afterlife History of Videogames and their Preservation.

Dan Hower took over the reins of, further developed, and continues to manage The Arcade Flyer Archive (TAFA), the leading digital repository for promotional artwork created by the coin-operated amusement industry. He personally owns over 3,000 coin-op video game flyers covering the period from 1971 to 1991. Along with Tim Ferrante and John Talarico, Dan co-authored The Arcade Video Game Price Guide 2002 Edition. Since 1996 he has been a web interface and experience designer.

Henry Lowood is the Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections and Film & Media Collections in the Stanford University Libraries. He heads a library project entitled How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames. The main focus of the project is the history and preservation of digital games, virtual worlds and interactive simulations as emerging new media forms.

Sam Palahnuk is the designer of the coin-op videogame hit "Star Trek", along with numerous console and computer titles such as Mickey's ABC's.

Dr. Mark J. P. Wolf is a Professor in the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. He has a B. A. (1990) in Film Production and an M. A. (1992) and Ph. D. (1995) in Critical Studies from the School of Cinema/Television (now renamed the School of Cinematic Arts) at the University of Southern California, and his books include Abstracting Reality: Art, Communication, and Cognition in the Digital Age (2000), The Medium of the Video Game (2001), Virtual Morality: Morals, Ethics, and New Media (2003), The Video Game Theory Reader (2003), The World of the D’ni: Myst and Riven (2006), The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond (2007), The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2008),  J. R. R. Tolkien:  Of Words and Worlds: (2009), Before the Crash: Early Video Game History (forthcoming), Encyclopedia of Video Games (forthcoming), and two novels for which he has begun looking for an agent and publisher. He is on the advisory boards of Videotopia, and the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and several editorial boards including those of Games and Culture, The Journal of E-media Studies, and Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and The Fan Arts.

Curt Vendel is the curator of The Atari Museum which assembled the world's leading collection of Atari console prototypes and archives. This collection is available for display by the International Arcade Museum Library. He is also the Founder and C.E.O. of Legacy Engineering Group and Legacy Consumer Electronics, which designed the Atari Flashback and Atari Flashback 2 re-releases of the Atari 2600 along with numerous other products.