Draft:David Hecht



David Hecht is a designer of board games.

Early life
David Hecht was a United States Navy contractor.

Hecht has been playing board games since 1971, when he was introduced to Alan Calhamer's Diplomacy and SPI's Borodino by his history teacher. He began playing railroad games when a friend introduced him to Rail Baron in 1977. He was introduced to 18XX games when a friend brought back a copy of 1829 from a trip to England.

Hecht ran an 1830 event at AvalonCon in 1998.

Career
Hecht has assisted in game development since 1972, when he first began attending sessions of SPI's "Friday Night Follies" in downtown Manhattan. He also participated in playtesting the original Cosmic Encounter from Eon Games.

Hecht was first inspired to design an 18XX game in 1995, when he met Federico Vellani, the designer of 1841 and 1849, at RailCon '95 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Vellani, the convention guest of honor, had brought some prototypes of his works in progress, 1827 and 1827Jr, and encouraged Hecht to try his own hand at it.

Hecht has designed, developed and published:
 * 1826 (France and Belgium)
 * 18EU (Europe)
 * 18FL (Florida)
 * 18VA (Virginia and Maryland)
 * 18Scan (Scandinavia)
 * 18US (the continental US on two map panels)