PaintballX3 Magazine August 2014 Issue | Page 30

30 Mike Cassidy Arthur Chang Tom Cole Guy Cooper Dan Colby August 2014 Mike Cassidy In the mid to late 1980s the Bushmaster pump gun was only rivaled in popularity by the Component Concepts Phantom. And the brains behind the company and the gun is Mike Cassidy. Mike has been in the game since the early 1980s and even today holds a prominent position in the game and industry. Arthur Chang When Kingman (now called Spyder) introduced the Spyder it forced all paintgun makers to rethink their pricing and that was great for the player. The man behind the Spyder of course is Arthur Chang. The Spyder line has sold literally thousands of affordable paintball guns since, diversifying by adding .43 caliber and .50 caliber markers to their line, as well as scenario and milsim markers. Kingman/Spyder was recently acquired by KEE and Arthur has not been heard from since. Tom Cole Tom Cole played paintball at the highest level for more than 15 years and yet he’s played on only one team-the one he founded and captained, Bad Company of Maryland. Tom’s been a paintball store owner (The Company Store), an executive at Kingman/Spyder, a key person in the day to day operations of the PSP and owner and founder of the UWL (Ultimate Woodsball League). Guy Cooper You may have never heard the name before, but Guy Cooper has been influencing paintball for more than 25 years. He’s been a field owner, a products distributor, a published author, a store owner, a political activist for the game, and his book, The Paintball Field Operators Guide has been used by many for more than 20 years. Dan Colby Dan Colby started out as a Chicagolands field owner, gun tinkerer, and player, eventually becoming the founder of Air America, one of the pioneers in early C02, high pressure air and regulator technology. Dan was part of Guerrilla Air in the late 2000s and has now formed a new company, Immortal Air where he continues to improve, create and develop air-related products for paintball. DeWayne Convirs Scenario paintball is the single most popular format of the game of paintball. No matter how great you think you look in bright blue, yellow or red, the vast majority of the people playing right now are still wearing some combination of green, brown and black and when they get together, they do it in numbers bigger than any tournament. Living proof is the event put together each