Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks is the personal friend of Jim Butcher and founding owner of Jim's official forums.

Biography
Fred Hicks is the Producer for the The Dresden Files RPG

Fred Hicks goes by the handle "Iago" on the Jim Butcher Forums.

According to Jim Butcher:

Fred and I played a text-based internet RPG together called AmberMUSH, back in the early 90s when the internet was just beginning to hit. We did not get along well. :) I was at odds with a friend of Fred’s, and Fred is the kind of guy who is fiercely loyal to his friends. We eventually worked things out, and when he came to grad school in the same general part of the country, he joined up with my semi-regular D&D or Warhammer games which I ran out of my teeny tiny little 20×20 rental house in Norman, Oklahoma. As I kept trying to write and get published, Fred gave me his unwavering support and plenty of encouragement, for which I have probably never adequately expressed my gratitude. Part of that was him volunteering to set up a basic bulletin-board style forum for fans of the books–which he did long before the books even SOLD, much less got published. I thought he was insane. Enthusiastically and supportability insane, but INSANE. Turns out he was just a lot more farsighted than me, I guess. :)