Tom Vasel is the Executive Director and Founder of the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. He is the host of the Dice Tower, a podcast and video show about board and card games.

Most importantly, he is the husband of Laura Vasel, and father of seven children. The death of his first son, Jack, in January 2011, and the outpouring of support from the game community, inspired him to start up this Fund.

John Kaufeld currently serves as the Fund's assistant director. He's been a professional part of the game industry for over 20 years, doing everything from owning game stores to editing rules to running conventions.

John's an avid evangelist for helping parents build better communication with their kids through the power of modern tabletop games. His favorites include Acquire, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, Diamant, and 6 Nimmt.

He aspires to open a gaming hotel called "Sackson" someday, but he'll settle for a bed and breakfast with an extravagant party room.

With a masters in education, Julie Ahern worked as an elementary school teacher for school districts in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Illinois (where she also designed statewide used educational board games and RPGs) before becoming one of the founding members of Greenbrier Games. Having started in 2011 as the content writer for the company, she has worked in all areas of game publishing from game development and project management, to marketing and sales.

When she isn't attending conventions, she spends as much time as she can with her many nieces and nephews.

Liesbeth Bos

I live, with my two kids, near Maastricht in the most beautiful part of the Netherlands. 

After studying industrial design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and the University of Wisconsin I became a toy designer. 

For fun I had invented a game with my dad which got published. But the first "real" boardgame I designed years later; "Capt'n Clever." It was published immediately. And from that moment on the focus shifted from designing toys to creating games. The world of games is just too much fun!

Although I still design games and get published, mostly with my co designer, I wanted to do more with the contacts I had and the "behind the scenes" knowledge I gathered over the years. So about 3 or 4 years ago, I decided to move my focus again. I wanted to stay in the boardgame industry I started a venture in which I want to provide services for publishers. I localize games worldwide, edit rules, do PR, etc. 

I love what I do.

Being able to give something back to the community I love to be in, feels good. And I am honored to have been asked for this. 

Stephen Buonocore is a hobby game entrepreneur, game media personality, and game industry veteran, as well as a former financial services industry IT professional.

Stephen Buonocore has proven managerial skills and 35 years of diverse IT experience in the financial services industry managing a global infrastructure group, project managing all Infrastructure workstreams, directing outsourced relationships, analyzing business issues, creating operational processes and solutions, and designing a wide range of systems for various Fortune 500 companies.

Aaron Cook currently serves as the Fund’s Treasurer. Aaron is an attorney practicing in Indianapolis. He primarily practices in the area of insurance defense litigation. 

Aaron is not picky in his selection of board games; he likes almost every game a little, and many games a lot. Some of Aaron’s favorites include Power Grid, Twilight Imperium, Endeavor, Terraforming Mars, Cthulu Wars, and Blood Rage.

Jack Kaye didn't get into gaming until his German officemate in graduate school dragged him into the hobby. After that, he learned to love games as diverse as Bohnanza and Age of Renaissance.  Later, his friend and Emeritus board member Cate Pfeifer, who knew of his love for charity work, asked him to help with the first JVMF fund-raising auction and he's been involved with the JVMF ever since. 

A scientist, engineer, teacher and (should have been) Oscar-winning actor, he likes to refer to himself as a "Jack of all trades, Master of one" and never takes himself too seriously - case in point, he says that he grew up in England and has that (undeserved) "superior" attitude that Otto complained about in "A Fish Called Wanda"...

Daniel Schwartzkopf currently serves as the Fund's secretary.  He served for 6 years in the US Navy as a Missile Technician after high school and followed that up with 6 years working in maintenance at Disneyland as a Sound Mechanic and a Planner/Scheduler.  In 2009, he began his most challenging role as a stay-at-home dad for the next ten years to begin raising three amazing daughters.  Between playing dolls and Legos,and watching Frozen about 650 times, he also managed to get his BA in History from Cal State Fullerton.  In 2019 he went back to work at Disneyland as a Planner/Scheduler, and is once again full of Pixie Dust. 

He loves God, his Family, and Friends (in that order), as well as Board Games, Tad Williams, C.S. Lewis, History, Libraries, and Photography (in no particular order).