InterGaming interviews Frank Fahrenkopf as he prepares to retire from the AGA.
“I never bet on anything, except when I arrive on the first tee,” said Frank Fahrenkopf. This was not so much an expression of dislike for betting as a preference for making his own luck.
Fahrenkopf was 30 years in a law practice in Reno, Nevada and Washington DC before the career change into trade association management. This may help to illustrate his care for words and a natural comfort in the corridors of power. But Fahrenkopf is much more than a slick Washington lawyer with a political bent. A man of considerable charm and an ability to immediately set at ease those with whom he consorts, Fahrenkopf has used his talents – and his Congressional contacts – to smooth the passage of a fledging American gaming industry through a period of massive transition.
Seventeen-and-a-half years after the AGA was founded – and after Fahrenkopf had to be persuaded to head it – he retires with an obvious feeling of some comfort in what has come to pass. “It is the right time,” he said. “I have a philosophy that everyone looks at themselves in the mirror every day, whether it is a man to shave or a woman to put on make-up. As they do so, they should ask themselves a question: are they happy and excited about going to work? If you don’t have that enthusiasm then you have to start telling yourself that it is time to do something else.” “I never bet on anything, except when I arrive on the first tee,” said Frank Fahrenkopf. This was not so much an expression of dislike for betting as a preference for making his own luck.
Fahrenkopf was 30 years in a law practice in Reno, Nevada and Washington DC before the career change into trade association management. This may help to illustrate his care for words and a natural comfort in the corridors of power. But Fahrenkopf is much more than a slick Washington lawyer with a political bent. A man of considerable charm and an ability to immediately set at ease those with whom he consorts, Fahrenkopf has used his talents – and his Congressional contacts – to smooth the passage of a fledging American gaming industry through a period of massive transition.
Seventeen-and-a-half years after the AGA was founded – and after Fahrenkopf had to be persuaded to head it – he retires with an obvious feeling of some comfort in what has come to pass. “It is the right time,” he said. “I have a philosophy that everyone looks at themselves in the mirror every day, whether it is a man to shave or a woman to put on make-up. As they do so, they should ask themselves a question: are they happy and excited about going to work? If you don’t have that enthusiasm then you have to start telling yourself that it is time to do something else.”
This article can be read in full in the February issue of InterGaming.
