Editor’s Note: This article is part of our series of highlighted exemplar recognitions. See our introduction post for all the details, or view all the posts in this series. This article was written by New Jersey Area Rep Dan Collins.

Elliot Raff is a Level 2 Judge from Boston, Massachusetts. His recognitions this wave come from judges across North America. Here are some examples of what they had to say:

Elliot, you put a lot of effort into nurturing my growth–feedback, staffing me on events, reviews, and recommendations. I wouldn’t be the judge I am today without your mentorship, and I certainly wouldn’t have made L2. I appreciate your openness and your willingness to answer questions on any topic at pretty much any time. – Eli Meyer

Elliot was a life-saver for me on two occasions. Earlier this year I had the priviledge to head judge my first StarCityGames.com Premiere IQ, and I asked Elliott to be my unofficial XO. Without as much experience with the SCG crew I knew I would need to leverage his experience in order to navigate SCG-specific procedures while still being able to maintain the perspective necessary to be at the helm of such an event. Discussions before the event helped guide my preparation, and he was an invaluable at the event. Elliott also was able to lobby on my behalf and get me on staff for GP Providence after the window had closed – which then created an opportunity for me to panel for L3 4 months earlier than I was expecting. His dedication to the program, I believe, is vastly above and beyond the expectations for an L2 and the entire program benefits from his hard work. – Jon Goud

Elliot, you have been a consistently positive presence at every event at which I have worked with you, but the main thing that encouraged me to write this recommendation is a conversation we had in Las Vegas where you opened up about some of the challenges you were having in judging and how you were going to address them by asking for hyper-critical feedback. That conversation caused me to have a huge revelation and has set me back on the right track for judging. Your willingness to share information that can help others is a rare trait and one that should be encouraged and propagated. – Chris Lansdell

Here’s what Dan Collins had to say about these recommendations:

This is a great set of recommendations. He received exemplar nominations relating to mentoring newer judges, as well as for sharing his experience with other judges at his level. The last rec is perhaps the most interesting: Elliot was afraid that he wasn’t receiving all the negative feedback others had for him, and so he made a point of asking, more adamantly than usual, for any critical feedback anyone had for him at SCG Vegas. Hopefully this helped Elliot grow as a judge, but it also had a more surprising effect in helping Chris Lansdell with his own development, as Chris described in his recommendation.