The seven dwarfs who pull the strings

These men have made the flight sim market, with some others, but seven is a magic number, like the seven dwarfs of the tobacco cartel... No grievance, no flattery here. It's just interesting to know who are behind this small market../.

Robert  Randazzo (40) is the CEO of PMDG. He has recently been candidate for lieutnant governor desk in Nevada Governor election. Has been an airline captain for United Express. PMDG has established a first link with australian designer Orbx.

John Venema, born in a family of pilots and instructors, John finaly learnt to fly ultralights. He deployed his energy and marketing skills to develop a true community of scenery designers with men like Stephen Stever. (useful resources from Christian Stock, Simpilotnet.com).

Francois "navman" Dumas. Despite his french name, Francois is dutch but have some strong connections in France. Francois might be the guru of the gurus. Francois has been of all the aventures ; FSFan, head of Simflight.com and is working today for flight sim publishing, news etc ; FSAddon+, Silver Cloud, Flightsimplazza.com and i must forget some other things. Francois is also working hard on Emma Field, a genius idea that was about creating a living scenery environment somewhere around Cushman, WA.... This idea made babies... but its another story.

Umberto Colapicchioni, from Milano (Italy) is a self-taught in computing and worked very early in video games (Commodore 64 platform...) and flight simulation. Umberto is CEO of Virtuali Software  (FSDreamteam). And when we talk about Virtuali, there are of courses connections with ESellerate (software licensing and activation), a subsidiary of Digital River.

Mathijs Kok, is the product marketing manager at Aerosoft Gmbh. With other friends, Mathijs worked on flight sim network before joining Lago (the editor that published Emma Field). Mathijs was also of all european meetings from the very debut of the flight sim adventure.

Miguel Blaufuks also comes from the same european adventure. Miguel has developed the SimFlight network, worked at Simmarket and is CEO of the simFlight Network.

Frederic Goldman was also from the same adventure with Miguel, Mathijs, Francois etc. He succeeded in founding a diversified - and - complementary business in flight sim shop and distribution. Frederic is head of Wilco Publishing and Simware shop. Wilcopub and Simware have the same website architecture... As you can see, a very secretive man.







Did we forget someone ? Possibly. But there are strong links between these seven people. Like this old report from FSWeekend 2001 (link below) seem to tell. Despite september 11, apparently, this year 2001 was peace and quiet in Amsterdam. Are these men still friends today ? How will they change this market ? Rest assured, most of them are far from ready to leave and abandon this business to the next generation...



Here is an old presentation of FSweekend in 2001 in Amsterdam with interesting pictures.
http://www.fsweekend.com/archief/Aviodome2001-1/Verslag2001-1.htm

If you are willing to complete this article, indulge me. I cannot be exhaustive and talk you about their twenty last years. There are resources on the web.