Jamie Mathy

Geek Elder

Jamie Mathy grew up in & spent most of his life in Central Illinois. For Christmas when he was seven, his mom gave him the D&D Red Box for Christmas, starting him on a path of geekiness that would never stop. He is 6'6 & absolutely terrible at high-school basketball, but designed some fairly epic encounters for his friends and played week-long games of Talisman.

Upon graduation, Jamie spent 5 years as a cook in the Army National Guard, & got his first real computer job at an dial-up Internet service provider. He had the 2nd working DSL line in Illinois in his apartment, and the woman of his dreams he met while line-dancing at a country bar.

The couple went on to open Kelly's Bakery & Cafe in 2005 and then Mavidea Technology Group in 2007. Jamie got involved in non-profit work & local politics & served as president of the Downtown Bloomington Association & then Bloomington-Normal Sunrise Rotary. Jamie was appointed to the Bloomington City Council in 2013 for a short stint to finish a term for a sick councilmember.

Jamie & Kelly purchased Gryfalia's Aerie in 2014, and rebranded it to Red Raccoon Games in 2015. They sold their part of Mavidea in 2016, and purchased a local cake & candy making supply store in 2017. Jamie was also elected to Bloomington City Council in 2017. 2018 saw the sale of Kelly's Bakery & Cafe.

During Covid lockdowns, Jamie realized a significant portion of the Red Raccoon customer base had lost their sense of community & had no personal interaction, so he started live-streaming AMAs 2 nights a week, chatting with anyone on any topic they wanted to bring up. This went on for 4 months, and eventually morphed into the Red Raccoon Radio podcast. Red Raccoon Radio is biweekly & talks about both RRG as well as industry news, but from a local game store owner's perspective.

In 2021 Jamie was offered the opportunity to buy a building he had wanted for a decade. He spent most of 2022 and the 1st half of 2023 restoring a historic Woolworth's building from 1939, and Red Raccoon moved into the refurbished building in June 2023.

Most recently, Red Raccoon Games won Retailer of the Year from the Games Manufacturer Association of America.