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John Kaufeld makes complex things easy, and helps parents -- especially dads -- learn to connect with their kids through board games.
And he loves every minute of it.
He's a best-selling author, speaker, trainer, consultant, board gamer, dad, and all-around geek. He also believes passionately in the power of board games as a tool for connecting with family and friends, but more about that later.
Back in 1993, he started writing about America Online, Microsoft Access, computer games, tabletop games, and more in the popular "...For Dummies" line of computer books, eventually churning out over 25 books in the line, along with a few random ones for other publishers. Over the years, his titles sold more than 2.8 million books in over 15 languages around the world.
John started writing as a high school stringer for The Republic (Columbus, IN). At about the same time, he expanded into radio as a weekend DJ for WWWY Radio (also in 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 first stint in Corporate America, John spent 10 years in various Information Systems and System Development jobs. His second term in Corporate America saw him working in communication, publicity, and marketing for a national trade association, a regional bank, a high-end manufacturing company.
Along the way, John wandered into the social game industry. As a kid, he and his father played many rounds of Hasbro's "Monopoly" (consistently using the wrong rules), and actually finished the game two or three times.
Then he discovered German board games (also known as "Eurogames"), and his gaming world -- and parenting style -- changed forever.
These days, you can often find John in the board game areas at Gen Con and other game conventions. He indulges in "Puerto Rico," "Agricola," "Race for the Galaxy," and just about any train game that wanders past (especially Empire Builder). If you see him, definitely say hi. After all, he never bites. (Well, at least not since the therapy.)
He's current finishing a Master of Arts in Professional Communication at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and is on the university staff in marketing and social media. He also freelances for several national and regional publications.
You can email him at jkaufeld@aol.com, the email address that launched a few million books.
