Here are the October 2016 judge anniversaries!
15 years
Christine ColosimoGionata Dal Farra
Christopher Richter
10 years
Takanori NakamuraKazuyuki Ishikawa
Stephen Ayers
Georgi Benev
Jeong Hyun Woo
Inhwan Kim
Thales Bittencourt
5 years
Zhenming ZhongFernando Carnicer
Hugo Oliveira De Carvalho
Jia Feng
Thomas Forget
Dan Francke
Philip Griffiths
Ben Leveiller
Xiaoyi Luo
Takuya Masuyama
Gareth Meredith
Mikkel Tollak Olesen
Lars Paulson
Akifumi Takashiro
Fumiyasu Wakamatsu
John Temple
Thomas Burchers
Maxime Grazzini
Mark Hensley
Massimiliano Ingrosso
Phil Ives
Dan Lavoie
Josh Parker
Julien Ranguetat
Shawn Rayson
Kazuho Saso
Chapman Sim
Jeff Sneddon
Keith Taylor
John Fleig
Richard Jones
Seth Keahey
Timo Koski
Ciro Lamberti
HwangRyoung Lee
Michael Matteson
Daniel Ortiz
Andrew Polk
Pavel Volodin
Ward Warren
Kwang Seob Yoon
Juan Ignacio Bermudez
Corey Carlson
Jennifer Dery
Robert Jelf
Katsuhisa Kanazawa
Felipe Martinez
Lucas Nicolau
Kazuyoshi Ohzawa
Pablo Paolo
Ben Rislove
Edmund Shum
Yuki Takekawa
Antonio Raimundo H Uzeda
Esteban Vasquez
Dennis Xiao
Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard work!
Before we get to the featured judges, I’d just like to quickly welcome Richard Neal to the Anniversaries project! Welcome, Richard! We’re glad to have you on board.
We have another month where we have so many L3 anniversaries that you have to visit a separate page to see the 4 of them! You can see that post here.
This month, we are featuring 3 judges: Inhwan Kim, Chris Richter
, and Thales Bittencourt
. First off, Woosuk Lee
has this to say about Inhwan:
I’m going to make a list. It looks like a who’s-who of notable judges, but these are people that have had exams made for them or interview/advancement reviews done by Chris (including failed advancements). It’s far from complete, but, in no particular order:
Jason LemahieuAnd I know this is very incomplete, and not just because it is less than 10% of the total number of people in his list – my L1 and L2 tests aren’t there, because they predate Judge Center’s beginning in 2006. I know for sure Chris certified a ton of people in his first five years as a judge. Chris has been directly responsible for the promotion of tons of people, or has generated practice tests, or has mentored, or given feedback to, or has helped to just become better judges.
Chris Richter is one of the people I most admire in the program, and one of the real first mentors and arguably the best mentor I’ve ever had. He got me my first two event gigs (a GPT and GenCon), certified me for L1 and L2, proctored my L3 written test, and has been seriously a giant in the midwest judge community, outside of his large amounts of program work.
Chris also tells it like it is – he has told me when I do poorly, and when I do well, at the very large number of events we have worked together. He gives this feedback to everyone – he is one of the people I most like to work with because of this, and he is both honest and compassionate to everyone.
Basically, Chris is one of the titans of the judge program, and I appreciate everything he has done, and I want to just stand back and point to him, and say “look at this guy that has touched so many lives, I want to be like him.”
Last but not least, we have Thales Bittencourt celebrating from Brazil! Carlos HoIt seems like it was yesterday when I first met a young Brazilian boy who seemed to be amazed at everything he was seeing in Los Angeles, but it’s been eight years already since Pro Tour Hollywood, and that boy is no longer young, being now a university teacher in Cabo Frio. This month, he’s even turning 10 years old as a judge! Having spent a lot of those years as the Regional Coordinator for Brazil, it’s obvious that Thales has had an impact in the most populous South American country. Here’s what a few of his fellow countrymen had to say for Thales’ 10th judgeversary.
Rafael Dei SvaldiA long time ago, when I had the honor to certify Thales, I told him that certifying him was probably my biggest contribution to our community. Time, and Thales’ skills and care for the program, have proven me right.
—
Carlos Rangon—
Lucas HortaOver the years Thales grew a lot in our community, from L2 to RC to the only L3 in the Brazilian community for a while, bending over backwards in order to coordinate a continental region. Because of his work we were between the fastest growing Judge regions for years.
Thales always has something to say that will make you think for yourself on how to attack a given problem and will give you tools to exercise your own leadership. At a time I was a new Level 2 with not much looking forward in the program, he showed me I could exercise a leadership in the northeastern Brazil and gave me a few pointers. We grew from 5 judges across 3 states (out of 9) to over 30 judges covering every state in the subregion!
Besides coming up with 15-day car trips (and actually convincing people that it’s a good idea), Thales is a brilliant guy and its an honor to have him as our RC. Happy anniversary!
Happy anniversary to all of you! We look forward to many more years of judging from you all.
Wow, so great!