Meet Our Board

Rick Weis

President and Vendor Coordinator

Rick has always had a real love for video games. The event that changed his life was his first retro gaming expo "World Of Atari" in 1998. After talking to the main organizer he realized that he wanted to get involved with a show and make it something that would give others the same joy he felt.

He became involved with NWCGE in Seattle and eventually moved NWCGE to Portland where it grew with more vendors and attendees. Renamed to Portland Retro Gaming Expo (PRGE) in late 2008 the show now involves several organizers responsible for different aspects of the show. Rick is currently the President of PRGE and still collects for the Atari 2600, check out his website.

Toby Wickwire

Vice President and Arcade Coordinator

Toby grew up with the Intellivision and began collecting old video games in the 90s. He was a vendor at the early PRGE events and soon began to help with the planning. Collectibles have been an important part of his life working at his family’s business, Coin Corner & Hobbies which he now owns with his sister.

In 2021 this native Oregonian moved to the Netherlands where he works for an online auction company called Catawiki, as an expert in the toys and video games categories.

Nick Kalberer & Lacy Kalberer

Treasurer and Volunteer Coordinator

Nick and Lacy have been with the Expo from the beginning. They provided much of the promotional and financial support needed to get the Expo started. Their belief in the our show allowed us to build the momentum we have today as the largest classic video game event in the Pacific Northwest.

Nick and Laci are the owners of Portland's Video Game Wizards which features a large inventory of classic video games.

Gerald Levinzon

Secretary of the board, Tournament, Sponsorship, Social Media & Guest Relations Coordinator

Gerald Levinzon, a Seattle native, started as a vendor with our shows for several years, going way back to the NWCGE days. He is the kind of guy who is passionate about everything he does, and he brings that positive enthusiasm and energy to our show. Gerald is the man you want to talk to if you are interested in tracking down info on an obscure japanese release because he likely has played it to death already.

Gerald also runs his company Double Jump Events which organizes the most fun parties and team building events ever!

Josh Hamblin

Officer Of The Board

Josh is the latest addition to the PRGE Board and has helped out the show for many years, including running the popular swap meet. He owns a video game store SideQuest and now runs his own super popular expo in Portland SideQuest Expo.

He’s been known as “the deal maker.” His focus has always been networking and bringing people together, often with creative solutions to unique problems

Hans Reutter

Web Presence, Social Media, Archiving and Documentation, Ticketing

Hans has been recording PRGE and other retro gaming expo panels since the late 90ies. He believes in documenting videogame alumni, artists, creators and the retro gaming community at large for posterity and is having fun doing it. And in his spare time he volunteers with the National Videogame Museum, digitizing old media assets.

Besides that, he also loves managing woodlands, planting trees and collecting launch items and promo material for Microsoft's Original Xbox console.

Check him out at SeattleRetroGuy@YouTube.

PRGE Twitch Hosts

Working to expand PRGE's Twitch presence and provide a broader view into the Pacific NorthWest gaming community are:

RedAuxPDX

is a musician and retro gaming enthusiast. When she's not co-hosting the Retro Gaming Expo twitch channel, you can find her arranging video game music for piano, practicing speedrunning, adding to her retro gaming collection, and streaming on her twitch channel twitch.tv/redauxPDX.

Her latest piano album, based on Castlevania for the NES, was released in 2022, and can be found on her bandcamp page.

DucksInDisguise

is a content creator with an emphasis on video production and editing. Whether he’s streaming Mario 64 from one of his Funtastic Color Series N64’s or co-hosting the Retro Gaming Expo twitch channel, be prepared for the unexpected whenever he's around. You can find him when he's not editing videos over on his twitch channel twitch.tv/ducksindisguise.

PRGE Alumni

The following people have contributed to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo over our years of operation.

Chuck Van Pelt

Chuck has been an exhibitor at every PRGE event and began providing graphics support for the 2008 show. He volunteered as one of the primary organizers in early 2009 prior to moving the show downtown.

Chuck likes to tinker with video game systems, repairing, cleaning and modifying them to work with modern televisions. He has produced his own line of game controllers modified to work with the vintage Vectrex home game system. You can find out more about what he's up to on his YouTube channel.

John Hancock

The Force is strong with this one. John Hancock is a long-time video game collector, enthusiast, and historian - by which we mean he has entirely too many games that he never stops talking about. We know he has been collecting games for many years because his name is on some really old legal document that lots of people get mad about around election time. He has been a visible face for the retrogaming crowd for some years, mainly because he is usually hovering, vulture-like, over the rarest thing on a given vendors booth. We're reasonably sure he has some kind of psychic game radar.

John has achieved immortality on YouTube.

Jon Rose

Jon the jack of all trades of the group. Part collector, writer, and philosopher, Jon has a very large collection of retro computers, vintage handhelds, videogames, and consoles that span 30+ years of gaming. Jon was introduced to PRGE by John Hancock and soon after Hancock moved from Northern California to Vancouver Washington, Jon was helping him with NWCGE & PRGE conventions as well. Jon is a skilled writer, gamer, and enthusiast that enjoys classic computing, pocket handhelds, strategy board games (that are generally more complicated than IRS tax law), and most of all, wheat free, gluten free organic food in biodegradable packaging.

Corey Strite

Corey joined the PRGE team and has been a long time supporter of vintage, retro, classic and Americana notions. In his spare time, Corey enjoys cars, sports, movies and music.

Corey's passion for American pop culture, his natural ability to find almost anything for anyone, and a large collection of records, video game gear and other rarities inspired him to open up a variety store in 2009. As the proud store owner of Classics and Oddities in Kelso, Washington, Corey provided locals with nostaliga for the pop culture items of their youth. In 2020, Classics and Oddities closed up shop. With no brick and mortar, that hasn’t stopped Corey from finding the cool, weird, and unique things in people’s collections.

Jake Bichler

Jake is a video gamer that dabbles in a little of everything. Not a completionist collector by any means but stays up with the current console as well as a wealth of knowledge on the older and random stuff. During a show it's hard to tell you where Jake will be, he may be at registration helping to distribute badges and then in a flash he is introducing our next panelist when you thought you just saw him hosting a console tournament. He is unmistakable when you spot him in the wild though as he is always wearing his top hat.

Along with Lacy, Jake helped to organize the 1-Ups, our awesome volunteer army. He has been volunteering at the show since 2010 and was responsible for Volunteer Coordination and Show Management.

Billy Galaxy

Billy has been a long-time exhibitor since the early days of PRGE and was instrumental with securing locations during the beginnings in Portland.

He also wrote the first non-self-published book on collecting classic videogames and has produced multiple documentaries on toys, check them out on IMDB.

Check out his store at Billy Galaxy.