Rest In Play - 2020 - 2029

Sarah Ross, formerly Zynga's vice president of global communications passed away in November 2021. Sarah had been working for Zynga for almost three years. Prior to Zynga, she was at Jam City, wher...e she held the same vice president of global communications position. Previously, she had worked marketing roles at Backflip Studios, Yahoo, TechCrunch, and Flipagram. At Zynga, Sarah was the driving force behind Zynga's social impact campaign Play Apart Together, which encouraged people to observe social distancing guidelines during the pandemic and stay in touch by playing games with their friends. Other campaigns Ross worked on include the Breast Cancer Awareness Month initiative #WordsWithHope.Show more

Jerry Houle, one of the pioneers of modern brand licensing and merchandising business and one of eight cofounders of Licensing International, passed away on October 27, 2021. Jerry started his care...er at Fisher Price and Milton Bradley before joining Jim Henson’s Muppets in March 1977 as its first marketing person and 25th employee. Jerry founded 7 divisions for the company, including worldwide licensing. In 1984, he ounded his own agency, Bliss House, Inc., whose clients included Curious George, Chaplin, Monty Python, Princess Diana, General Motors, Survivor, Babar, among many others. He also created and taught an MBA-level course on licensing at Babson College, and spoke at licensing events around the world. He leaves behind his wife, Peggy, sons, Jerome, William, and James, as well as six grandchildren. He will be deeply and dearly missed by all those that knew and loved him.Show more

Peter was born on November 1, 1937 and passed away on March 15, 2021. Peter earned his degree from Fordham University, and was a lifelong proud alumni. After graduating, he enlisted in the army, a...nd was transferred to the 77th Infantry Reserves in New York. During his time in the Reserves, he started a job as a buyer at B.Altman & Co,, which is coincidentally where he met his first wife, Priscilla Pfurr. Peter went on to work as a buyer for Child World in Massachusetts, where he met his second wife, Linda Hejduk. Then Peter moved to New York City and started a job with a stuffed toy manufacturer, Commonwealth Toy. Soon after, he and Linda started their own stuffed toy manufacturing company, Westcliff Limited. After his son, Peter, joined them, they enjoyed more than a dozen years in business traveling to South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, and trade shows across the US. After retiring, Peter and Linda moved to Mantoloking, NJ, and spent their golden years traveling the world.Show more

Bill Gamson was born on January 27, 1934 and passed away on March 23, 2021. He was a professor of Sociology at Boston College, wrote numerous books and articles on political discourse, and wrote and c...reated the National Baseball Seminar, the first fantasy baseball league in Boston in the 1960s. After he came up with the game at Boston College, he moved to the University of Michigan, where he recruited more people to play the game, including Robert Sklar, who mentioned it to Daniel Okrent, who went on to invent the Rotisserie League Baseball. It's considered the closest ancestor to today's billion-dollar fantasy sports industry.Show more

Terry Stephens passed away in early April 2021. He was a director of CTS Upper Thames Wholesalers and retail buying group Youngsters. Later in his career, he switched to the sales side working for Gib...ons Games. Friends and colleagues remember him as a charming gentleman, a smart dresser, and an Arsenal football fan.Show more

John Paul Leon was born on April 26, 1972 and passed away on May 2, 2021. He was an American comic book artist best known for his work on the Milestone Comics series Static, and the Marvel Comics limi...ted series Earth X. John Paul started working at 16 years old, designing a series of illustrations for TSR's Dragon and Dungeon magazines. He attended New York's School of Visual Arts, and while still earning his degree in illustration, he got a job illustrating the Dark Horse Comics miniseries RoboCop: Prime Suspect. By his junior year he was the inaugural artist on the DC Comics/Milestone ongoing series Static. John Paul became more and more sought after as he came out with more work. His drew the miniseries Logan: Path of the Warlord and The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix (both in 1996), and the 12-issue miniseries Earth X (1999), written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, another signature work of John Paul's that depicted a dystopian future of the Marvel Universe, and which spawned multiple sequels. John Paul also contributed to regular ongoing series such as multiple Batman-related books, Superman, and Challengers of the Unknown (1997). By the 2000s, Warner Bros tasked John Paul to create a number of style guides for the studio's feature film adaptations of DC properties, including Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Green Lantern, and The Dark Knight. John Paul passed away after a 14-year battle with colorectal cancer, leaving behind a loving wife and daughter.Show more

Jens Nygaard Knudsen was born January 25, 1942 and passed away on February 19, 2020. Jens began his career at LEGO as a model builder, and his first task was to build hundreds of LEGO Town cars in ...different colors. After a while, he was assigned to make bigger sets, like Fire Station, Police Station, and the Hospital. He actually came up with the idea to include rooftop heliports on these sets. In the 1970s, he and his colleague Bent Irving Anderson developed the electric train system before Jens set his sights on the mini figure. He designed over 50 concepts, and in 1978, his minifigure design was patented and produced by the LEGO group, and all minifigures to this day use this design. Eventually, Jens was promoted to Chief Designer, a position he held until he retired in 2020.Show more

Satish Pillalamarri tragically lost his battle to cancer in October of 2020. Satish joined North Star games straight out of business school becoming partners with Luke Warren. One of the first gam...es they worked on together was Cluzzle. In 2006, they came out with Wits & Wagers, and in 2008, Say Anything followed. Together, Satish, Luke, and the rest of their company made more than games, they made a family, and Satish is deeply and dearly missed by all. Satish leaves behind his wife, Shivangi, and their son, Om, who was born just days before Satish passed. A scholarship fund was created in Satish's memory to fund Om's college one day. If you would like to donate, the link is here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/scholarship-for-om-in-honor-of-satish-pillalamarriShow more

Lee Volpe was born on June 3, 1941 and passed away on October 21, 2020. Lee had a long and successful career in industrial design. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the Philadelphi...a College of Art, and went on to become a successful inventor, design developer, and consultant. He worked with top licensors, Jim Davis of Garfield, Charles Schultz of Snoopy, Jim Henson of The Muppets, Berke Breathed of Opus, as well as Disney, Nickelodeon, Scholastic, and Harley Davidson. He was also the Corporate Vice President of Product Development and Inventor Relations at Tyco. Outside of his work, Lee loved motorcycles, music, good food, "dark & nuclear" bears, "chewy" red wines, and single malt scotch. He also taught Industrial Design evening classes at University of the Arts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art). He will be deeply and dearly missed by all those that knew and loved him.Show more

Robert Manlin passed away on March 15, 2020. He was the President of Robert Manlin Marketing and was previously Senior Vice President of Sales at Larami Inc. Robert leaves behind his beloved wife, ...Bo, three children, Jessica, Elizabeth, and Zachary, and his three grandchildren, Aidan, Cora, and Reuben. His children and grandchildren were the lights of his life, and they, and all that knew and loved him, will miss him dearly.Show more