GAMA Staff

Anthony Gallela

Executive Director

Anthony has been involved in gaming in one way or another for some 30 years. He started by playing D&D, Avalon Hill, and SPI games in elementary school. In high school, Anthony played just about every game he could find; and began running gaming events at Sci-Fi cons.

In his late teens, Anthony moved on to running whole game programs at Sci-Fi conventions, and was playtesting games as well. In 1993, Anthony published the Theatrix diceless role-playing game with some pals under the banner of Backstage Press, and in 1994, he started running the ManaFest game convention in the San Francisco Bay Area with Japji Khalsa. He also helped to open and manage a retail store in the Bay Area in the mid-90s.

Since then he has been running conventions, writing articles for gaming publications, consulting on game design, brokering games, and designing board games. Anthony has worked for GAMA since 2001, and as the Executive Director for GAMA, he oversees the running Origins Game Expo, GAMA Trade Show, and several industry programs. He still runs ManaFest, now called "KublaCon," and he is the co-designer of Dwarven Dig!, with Japji Khalsa, from Kenzer and Co.

E-Mail: ED@gama.org

Jodie Ramsey

Operations Manager

Jodie has been involved in some form of gaming all her life starting with family-style board and card games in early childhood and moving into historical miniatures in her mid-teens. Volunteering at Origins since 1998, she started with a position as a Historical Miniatures volunteer and moved up to War Wing Director in 2004.

Working to further the hobby of miniatures gaming, she devoted time to Jodie Press and JodieCon. Jodie Press, a non-profit wargame publishing operation, was formed to promote the hobby of Military Historical Wargaming by helping amateur wargame designers to publish, circulate and otherwise propagate their innovative gaming systems and wargame scenario/data books.

JodieCon presented historical miniatures wargaming as it should be. Each campaign in the series features weekend-long wargames run by premier game masters and is filled with fun and camaraderie. Informative presentations by historians, military experts and historical re-enactors round out the experience.

E-mail: Ops@gama.org

John Kaufeld

Communications Manager 

John Kaufeld didn’t so much jump into games as games jumped onto him. An old Monopoly set on a high shelf bewitched him at the tender age of four. The game crashed down on his head as he attempted to quietly get it from the shelf (but that's another story). Somehow, the resulting shower of wooden hotels and play money set John's life course into the game industry. (It sounds like a shaky plot complication to us, but it’s better than nothing.)

In high school, John worked as a stringer for The Republic (his hometown newspaper) and a weekend DJ for WWWY Radio (Columbus, IN). In college, he scrambled for stories as the weekend news anchor for WLBC Radio (Muncie, IN) and the afternoon news editor for WBST Radio (the Ball State University PBS station). During his requisite stint in Corporate America, John spent 10 years in various Information Systems and System Development jobs.

He ultimately went out on his own as a freelance writer, trainer, and all-around game human. In addition to his Communications Manager duties, John holds the title of Chief Elf at More Than Games, a specialty boardgame store in Fort Wayne, Indiana (although nobody really knows what that means). He spent the last 10 or so years writing about AOL, databases, and computer games in the popular ...For Dummies line of computer books, and continues writing when his editors call.

E-Mail: PR@gama.org

Trey Reilly

Programs Manager

When she was 12, Trey Reilly found a D&D boxed set sitting in her mother’s closet. In no time at all, she started adventuring with her friends. When she got to college, her love of role-playing games led Trey to every game convention she could find.

In 1994, she discovered a latent interest in organizing game conventions when she volunteered at one of her favorite cons. Trey began volunteering for Origins in 2001 with a stint at the registration desk, and continued volunteering with the convention ever since.

The combination of games and conventions led her to co-found Wild Gazebo Productions in 2000. The company ran a series of LARPs and gaming conventions on the East Coast over the last five years.

Using her background in theater and theatrical lighting design, Trey spent the last seven years as a professional meeting planner and convention organizer. She planned trade shows, educational programs, weddings, corporate retreats, exhibits, and product launch parties. Her clients included the New Jersey Apartment Association, the Caroline and Sigmund Schott Foundation, and pharmaceutical companies such as Aventis and Ortho-McNeil. She also occasionally taught SAT and GRE classes for Kaplan Test Prep.

E-Mail: Programs@gama.org

Matthew Ragsdale

Sales & Exhibitor Services

Matthew Ragsdale, originally from Montana, grew up as an involuntary transient (Army Brat). After living all over the northern half of the US, he settled down in Columbus, OH. He started playing games at a young age with basic family board games, quickly moving onto D&D, Cyberpunk, and Marvel Super Heroes. Matthew moved from there to European style board games and card games. He started attending Origins in 2002, and was brought on as a volunteer to run Origins’ new revamped Art Show and Program in 2004. He has been active in running Science Fiction conventions for the last decade, helping to run conventions in seven different states (and one Canadian Province).  Matthew brings to his position at GAMA a long history of work in the hospitality fields, as well as a wealth of customer service experience and many years as a convention organizer.

E-mail: Sales@gama.org