Frank Mentzer

Jacob Franklin Frank Mentzer III , is an American fantasy author and game designer best known for his work on early materials for the Dungeons amp Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. He was a performing folk musician from 1968 to 1975, and played one concert at the White House during the administration of Richard Nixon. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 19801986, spending part of that time as Creative Advisor to the Chairman of the Board, Gary Gygax. He also founded the RolePlaying Games Association during his time with TSR. He has been closely involved with the worlds largest game auction at the Gen Con game convention since 1983, and is an expert on, and a major collector of, family boardgames and roleplaying games. After Gygax was ousted from TSR at the end of 1985, Mentzer left TSR as well and helped him to start New Infinities Productions Inc. . When this venture failed, Mentzer left the gaming industry, eventually becoming the manager of a bakery. In 2008, he closed down this

Frank Mentzer was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, Pennsylvania, the older of two children his sibling is Susanne Mentzer. While attending Springfield High School, he started to play folk music. He played his first paid folk music concert at the opening of the Visitors Center for the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia at age sixteen. Immediately after Mentzer graduated from high school in 1968, his father, who worked for the National Park Service , moved the family to Maryland in order to work at Catoctin Mountain Park. Mentzer enrolled at West Virginia Wesleyan College, but he was also interested in furthering his folk music career. With his fathers advice on who in the NPS to contact, Mentzer was able to arrange to play concerts at various NPS sites. In 1972, he was hired by NPS to play a public concert in the White House gardens for innercity children. At one point during the concert Pat Nixon, followed by national news crews, came to listen,

Source: Wikipedia