Meet Gordon Cheung: As part
of an internet presence over ten years ago your humble narrator extended a
cordial invitation to Gordon to check out a BPMS meeting. He’s been a committed
member and put into service under various positions ever since. Before we get
to his illustrious career within The Club, we need to tell the tale of our 39
year-old president.
As a lifelong Queens
resident, Gordon is currently employed as an accounts receivable specialist at
a prestigious Long Island university for over
ten years. He has distinguished himself at work for his ability to embrace new
technology and put it to good use, saving time and hours. His knack for tech
drew him, like many in the hobby, to the internet for research.
Models weren’t anything
new to Gordon as his earliest hobby experience was during his childhood when
his father bought him a kit of the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard. I wonder how much that model is worth now
since the show has been pulled from various networks last year? But I
digress, when they got that kit home, his dad observed how complex the kit was
and put it aside until he could find someone who could help his son with this.
Undeterred, Gordon found the hidden model and built it on his own. A modeler
was born! After that he kept it up, building mostly snaps at first, then more
complicated glue together models, he started painting his work during his
middle and high school years. When the maturity of college came around, Gordon
started becoming more serious about the hobby. Like many of us, his skills
improved through various books and magazines that he devoured for knowledge.
Then the internet brought a wealth of information to everyone’s fingertips. At
that point he learned expert skills that allowed him to build at the level of
precision that he does today.
Gordon is a disciplined hobbyist, keeping his
model-world contained within his own bedroom. From there he builds largely
science fiction models with a preference for the Gundam Universe. His favorite
model must be the Master Grade Gundam RX-78-2 version 1.5 from Bandai. It was a
model that represented the robot that spawned the entire series. What’s more,
the model was the start of those complex kits from Bandai designed to assemble
perfectly. It would really bring him joy if Bandai would add some more kits
from WAR IN THE POCKET as they only had two offerings from that series.
Despite recent advances,
Gordon believes the hobby has many challenges. The high prices for models are
discouraging young people from entering the hobby. Couple that with the way
technology has a grip on younger people (between social media and video games),
it’s an uphill battle to encourage young model builders.
In a couple months Gordon
will finish up his two-year term as President of the BPMS. At that time he
would like to resume his previous role of posting photos from the various club
contests on the Photo Blog and Facebook page. He might even have time for his
other diversions, such as archery and video games. Regardless, his heart is
with The Club: I have not met a more laid back scale hobby club then the BPMS!