A messy dispute has the board of directors of the GAMA Retailer Division working to remove the recently elected Chairman, D.P. 'Vern' Vernazzarro, owner of the Adventure Knight retail chain in Georgia and head of the Game Industry Forum on Delphi.  Vernazzarro was elected, along with John Kaufeld as Vice-Chairman, Janis Cearley as Secretary, and Billy Geer, Rob Placer, Jim Crocker, and Steve Nicewarner as Directors, at a meeting of the Retailer Division at the recent GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas.  The Chairman of the Retailer Division also normally sits on the board of the over-all GAMA organization. 

 

Vice-Chairman Kaufeld issued a lengthy statement to the GAMA membership this week in which he recounted in great detail the events surrounding the GAMA Retailer Division election, the full GAMA board meeting held thereafter, and the deliberations of the GRD board.  According to the statement, concerns about representations made during the campaign for Chairman, about relationships between the tiers during Vernazzarro's last tenure as GRD Chairman, and about what the other GRD board members perceived as Vernazzarro's difficulties in working with the manufacturer tier led the other members of the GRD board to introduce a motion to the full GAMA board that Vernazzarro not be seated as the GRD representative.  The resolution was passed unanimously, and Kaufeld eventually took over as the GRD representative on the GAMA board as a temporary measure.  The other members of the GRD board, according to Kaufeld's statement, are now working to remove Vernazzarro as Chairman. 

 

Vernazzarro did not respond to our requests for comment for this article, so unfortunately we have only one side of the story.  For the good of the industry, it seems important that this dispute get resolved quickly so the trade organization responsible for running the largest trade show for pop culture retailers (see 'GAMA Trade Show Up 50-100%') and the Origins consumer show does not have this governance dispute hanging over its head.