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he Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM) announced Wednesday that the late Robert “Bob” McMonigle has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Jens Halle Memorial Award Honoring Excellence in Commercial Gaming Professionalism, and David Orrick has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Peter Mead Memorial Award Honoring Excellence in Gaming Media & Communications.
AGEM previously announced the creation of this unique annual awards program to acknowledge the lasting impacts on gaming by Halle and Mead, two distinctive industry veterans who died unexpectedly in 2015. Honorees are announced each year at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, and this year’s awards ceremony for McMonigle and Orrick took place on Wednesday during day two of G2E Virtual Experience.
In accepting the award, via video link from his home in England, David Orrick, Director of Industry Relations, Merkur Gaming said: “Both Jens and Peter were dear friends and both supported me enormously in a time of personal tragedy after the sudden and tragic death of my beloved partner, Ruth, in 2015. Within just a few weeks both Jens and Peter also passed away and, thanks to AGEM, these awards keep the memory of these two gaming legends alive in our memories. I would also like to congratulate the family and friends of the winner of this year’s Jens Halle Award, the late Robert ‘Bob’ McMonigle, who was a driving force in the establishment of AGEM in 2000 and served as the organization’s first President until 2005.”
“The relationship between David Orrick and Jens Halle is well-known in our industry, but David stands alone this year in deserving this award honoring the memory of Peter Mead,” AGEM Executive Director Marcus Prater said. “We always let the nominating criteria guide the selection of these AGEM Memorial Awards, and David fits the bill in so many ways as first a gaming journalist and later as the head of communications for many respected international gaming suppliers. He has traveled the world representing our industry with both a gruff scrutiny and a positive twinkle in his eye. And finally, it needs to be noted that in the aftermath of the passing of both Jens and Peter, it was David who initially brought the idea of annual memorial awards to AGEM that we launched and have expanded over the past five years.”
Merkur Gaming’s chief executive, Athanasios ‘Sakis’ Isaakidis, said: “David Orrick’s vast experience and his worldwide contacts have been, and are, a great asset for Merkur Gaming and we warmly congratulate him on this well deserved award. We share with him our fond memories of two gaming industry luminaries who will never be forgotten; particularly in the unprecedented times that gaming around the world is experiencing and as we look forward to better times and to Restart with Merkur.”
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944, McMonigle died on March 15, 2020 at 75 following a robust life both personally and professionally. He began his business career with Reader’s Digest magazine in New York City and went on to work in marketing and circulation for Rolling Stone and Outside during a career in magazines spanning 1979-1986. McMonigle then began his legendary career in gaming when he joined International Game Technology (IGT), where he spent 17 years and helped lead the company to the top of the list of global slot machine companies.
He held many positions at IGT, ultimately Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations and North American Sales, and became widely regarded as the most successful slot salesman in gaming history, with IGT routinely receiving 70 percent market share of new casino openings as the riverboat gaming boom in the early 1990s led to explosive gaming expansion in the U.S. and around the world. McMonigle was also a driving force behind the founding of AGEM in 2000 and served as the organization’s first President through 2005 before moving on to work for a variety of other gaming-supplier companies.
“Bob McMonigle helped establish AGEM and create a path for our organization going forward and all supplier companies have benefitted from his vision,” said AGEM President Luke Orchard, who also serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Compliance & Risk Management Officer for IGT. “And I can say from an IGT perspective, Bob’s presence is felt every day here based on his incredible success selling our games and machines going back to the beginning of the riverboat gaming era. Like Jens Halle, Bob’s reputation for forging positive relationships with operators throughout the industry is legendary. AGEM is honored to present this award to Bob’s wife, Joni, and his memory and impact on our industry will live on.”
Halle, a longtime Bally and Novomatic executive in Europe who was most recently CEO of Gauselmann Group’s Merkur Gaming based in Florida, died suddenly on May 20, 2015 at the age of 57. Mead, the founder and publisher of Casino Enterprise Management magazine, died suddenly in Las Vegas on June 24, 2015 at the age of 54.
