Quoted from PinballSTAR:

So sad to hear this about Koz / John. He was always a good friend to me and like others my first introduction to him was out of his big heart / big passion for pinball and an act of kindness. Gosh maybe 15 years ago I reached out to Koz when he ran Pinbrawl at Expo and said I wanted to have my son who was probably 10 years old to compete as a father / son team with me and wondering if that was ok and if he had anyone who hook us up as partners who wouldn't mind a young kid as a teammate. He said absolutely he would love to help and found us Brian and Ethan (probably 12 at the time) Blonder as another father son team to play with. We had an amazing time and made great friends beyond Pinbrawl with Brian and Ethan because of Koz's extra effort to make it a great experience and welcome us with open arms to his tournament.
He was an incredible promoter / cheerleader for the hobby and we will miss his presence even though he has stepped back a bit in the last few years to be with his growing family. Over the years as a distributor and he as a promotor he was always looking for any way to expand the hobby and he couldn't hide his exuberance of the hobby when he spoke. He supported the MI pinball community with his show he started from scratch and that's no small feat.
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't share my favorite Koz story. We sat next to each other one year at Expo in the Stern seminar. I have no idea why but Koz was just out of it that day - looking a little rough and he fell asleep. Like dead asleep. So Gary Stern starts talking and we are in the 2nd row and he starts snoring. Now Koz was a big guy and he was snoring so loud that Gary was looking over at times and about 2-3 rows of people were losing their shit that Koz was literally disrupting Gary's speech with big honking snores. I kept waking him up primarily because I knew he was a known person in the hobby and I wanted to protect him from any embarrassment he was sleeping and somewhat disrupting the seminar. It was like trying to wake a bear in hibernation... First off he was so big to even make a difference to wake him up I was literally punching him in the arm. He'd grumble loud raise his head then go back to sleep. I think the people around us found me trying to wake him more funny than him snoring. Then all of a sudden after 15 - 20 minutes of this he shakes himself awake in one big burst stands up, his chair get tossed aside and he rumbles out in the middle whoever was speaking. Doesn't say a word to me and just leaves in a disruptive manner. I saw him later or the next day and told him how loud he was, teasing him, etc... and he just didn't give a shit. That was Koz. He was a gentle giant and a giant in the hobby for sure. Your enormous personality will be missed my friend.
Joe