March 2013 Anniversaries

Here are the March 2013 judge anniversaries.

 

10 years

Stefan Conka, Czech Republic
Julien SELLOS, France
Glen White, England, Great Britain

5 years

Sean Catanese, California, United States
Avri Rahamim, California, United States
Maxime Cochin, France
Paul Ferret, Ouest, France
Rene Herrera, Bio-Bio, Chile
Mircea Pienar 2 Romania 3/16/2008
Jose Correa, Lara, Venezuela
Dimah Eroshkin, Pennsylvania, United States
Jan Jaap Vermeire, Netherlands
Pietro Lombardo, Cosenza, Italy

 

Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard work!

This month’s featured judge is Sean Catanese from California, United States. Level 3 judge David de la Iglesia had this to say about Sean:

The kitten of the seas

SeaCat, the kitten of the seas

“I met Sean at GP San Diego in 2011. At that point I have heard his voice plenty of times on JudgeCast, so when I actually got to talk face to face with him for the first time it was like I had known him forever. We became instant pals at that event, and since then we’ve stayed in touch almost daily, despite the 9 time zones in between us.

I admire Sean for his dedication to the judge program. In his role as USA-SouthWest Regional Coordinator he goes above and beyond when people are in need, helping them even at his own expense. His generosity and example inspire others to invest their time and efforts to make the judge community a better place.

The passion Sean has for his community shows up in numbers. There are over 200 judges in California, almost twice as many as in Spain! (and that has quite some merit, California has a similar population density, but is smaller in size, with a lower population). Sean has been instrumental in the recent growth of his region, and I am sure he will continue delivering great results in the future.

Congratulations, Sean!”

And here’s what fellow RC Riki Hayashi said:

“Having watched Sean Catanese grow through the Judge Program from the beginning,  I wish I could use this space to brag about how much I taught him, and how he owes everything he knows about judging to me. Instead, it was him who taught me about patience, compassion, and giving people personal attention. These are qualities that make Sean an ideal Regional Coordinator, and skills that I now try to emulate as I join him in the RC ranks. To turn a phrase from Star Wars, “The master has now become the student,” and I look forward to learning as much as I can from Sean and cooperating with him to make the US West Coast a haven for excellent judges.

One of my most vivid memories of Sean’s dedication to his role is from the SCG Los Angeles Invitational last December. He helped run a Judge Conference on the Thursday and Friday before the event, then mostly played the rest of the weekend. I don’t think that he ever officially donned the powder blue RC shirt (maybe briefly during the conference seminars), but in a metaphysical sense, he never took the RC shirt off. In between rounds of play, he chatted with his judges, offered them advice, assisted in advancement exams, helped me with a DQ investigation, and guided several judges (both on staff and there as players) through difficult life moments. It was a full performance weekend. What made it all the more stunning was that it was “off the clock.” Sean wasn’t compensated as a judge, let alone as an RC, for anything that weekend. Oh, I suppose he took home a foil packet for attending the conference, but that was it. Room, travel, everything else was out of his pocket.”

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