Gym Leader Blaine

Gym Leader Blaine is a PTO and judge for Pokemon Trading Card Game. You will usually find him running the computers behind the stage at big events like U.S. Nationals and Worlds. All the lines of runners bringing match slips back to the computers, have given that location the nickname, the Hive. GLB is known as Queen of the Hive. He is very friendly when not trying to get the slips turned for the next 250+ player round, so if you see him outside the Hive, stop and say hello.

Location: Georgia, USA
Real Life: Husband for 10+ years, with 3 kids.
Work Life: Work, work, work, work for the Ford Motor Company
Hobbies: Includes Pokemon, just in case you did know,
Star Wars, and spending time with my three wonderful
kids.
Favorite Pokemon: Snorlax, Munchlax, & Chimchar
(Flaming Monkey)
Personal Comments:
My journey into Pokemon started when I lived in Utah and my mother asked me to help find these Pokemon card packs that my younger brother, 10 at the time, was looking for, but seemed to be sold out everywhere. She knew I was in stores a lot looking for other items, and wondered if I could give here a hand on locating packs for him. I found a couple packs of Jungle at the 7-Eleven by my work during lunch. Later that day when I was back at work I decided to open up one of the packs to see what this Pokemon thing was all about. The pack had a holo foil Snorlax, and I have been hooked ever since. Shortly after that I took my brother to a Pokemon movie and got a card for one good Mew Promo. We found a local league at the Game Keeper in Downtown Salt Lake, and joined so we could play every Saturday.

The league in Salt Lake did things a little bit differently, that when a player had enough points to earn their Gym Badge they would have to go up against a person playing that Gym Leader using their type of deck to earn their badge. A while after I became a league leader, and was the person that someone would have to battle for the Volcano badge, hence I earned the name Gym Leader Blaine. I help run the league, and was invited by the WOTC PTO to be the head judge on all major WOTC sponsored tournaments in the area. During this time I also help a lot of other local stores run Pokemon tournaments at their locations, and really enjoyed the time I had running events.

When PUI start to run Pokemon I was given the opportunity to become a PTO in Utah for the Ruby & Sapphire Challenge tournament. Since that day I have run tournaments in Utah, Idaho, Kentucky, Illinois, and Georgia. I was also given the chance to run the West Coast Stadium in California, were I meet BDS, Chrisbo, & Bulbasnore for the first time. I have also been very fortunate to be invited to help out at Worlds 04, 05, 06, 07, & Nationals 05, 06, 07. My responsibilities in each of these events were to work in “The Hive”, which is the area that computers are that run the event. I now live in Georgia, and run Pokemon events in the state.

Do or do not, there is no try.