Thomas Malin Rodgers (August 1, 1943 — April 12, 2012) was an Atlanta-based businessman and puzzle collector who is remembered as the originator of the Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) educational foundation, first conceived in 1992.
[2] Over the past three decades it hosted 14 biennial conferences for aficionados of the recreational mathematician and Scientific American columnist and writer Martin Gardner.
[4][5] Through his monthly Mathematical Games column and his extensive correspondence, Gardner had created a large network of fans and had achieved an almost cult-like status.
"[3] By the time of G4G7 in 2006, the conference was attracting a wide assortment of people, including Mathematician Daina Taimina, gaming hobbyist Lou Zocchi, puzzle designer Wei-Hwa Huang, magic square expert Lee Sallows, puzzle historian David Singmaster, computer scientist and origamist Ron Resch, and spidron inventor Dániel Erdély—in addition to establishment mathematicians John H. Conway and Roger Penrose.
[3] As tradition demanded, for one day he hosted the attendees at his lavish home and Japanese gardens in north Atlanta, which was filled with his huge puzzle collection.