Introducing the New Faces of BOCA: Tom Kosiec

It is our pleasure to introduce you to another BOCA newbie, Mr. Tom Kosiec, writing intern extraordinaire! Hailing from nearby Wisconsin Dells, the waterpark capital of Wisconsin, Tom found his way to San Francisco when he decided to follow his passion for video game journalism. Though he later changed career paths, as he realized he didn’t want to mix pleasure with work, Tom is still an avid gamer and occasionally writes about video games on his personal blog for fun.

When he’s not working at BOCA, Tom likes to spend his weekends traversing the great City by the Bay. Constantly on the lookout for the next street fair or event, you can always find Tom exploring something or somewhere new and adventurous.

1. How would your family and friends describe you?

I think my family and friends would start off by probably saying I’m quiet and keep to myself. Also, they’d say I’m humble and down to earth—I usually don’t go for fame and things like that.

2. How did you hear about BOCA and what are your job duties?

At the time, I had just finished working a sales job at Sony and was looking for my next venture when I saw an advertisement on Craigslist for BOCA. After reading the job description and visiting BOCA’s social media channels, I thought BOCA seemed pretty cool and decided to reach out. Now that I’m an intern, my job duties include managing the official BOCA blog, drafting tweets and Facebook posts for the social team, as well as assisting fellow writers with bylines and press releases.

3. If you could be a fictional character for a day who would you be?

I’ve thought about this before, and if I had to choose, I would be Hobbes from Bill Watterson’s classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It was my favorite comic growing up, and I think it would be fun to experience their little adventures together from the perspective of Hobbes.

If I were a fictional character from a video game, I would have to go with Link from the Legend of Zelda series. I think it would be exciting to explore the diverse landscape of Hyrule and play around with all the tools he finds in dungeons like the hookshot, invincibility cloak and hover boots.

4. What’s a random skill you wish you could do or learn to do better?

An easy one is writing. My handwriting is not where I’d like it to be, so I’d want to perfect the art and write cleaner copy. Besides writing, I would want to learn to be better at art. I think it would be interesting to have the ability to paint Impressionist art like Claude Monet or do hand drawn animation for Studio Ghibli films such as Howl’s Moving Castle.

5. Where would you like to travel and why?

One place I really want to see is Japan. It’s probably more towards my interests because I grew up gaming, and I always had an affinity for Japanese culture. I’d also like to go to France because I studied French in school, and I loved to visit all the exotic locations James Bond has been to, such as Crab Key, Shanghai, London, etc.

6. What famous person would you like to have a 30-minute conversation with?

Well, there are two people I would actually like to converse with: (1) Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of classic video game series like Mario, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and more; and (2) Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes. Both had a strong influence on my childhood, and it would be fascinating to have a conversation with them regarding how they came up with their ideas and a little more on who they are.