I owe the friends that I met in college who helped me overcome my initial attitude of disbelief and ridicule towards gamers in general (I never even heard of RPGs until I got to college) and who convinced me that first edition D&D and Rolemaster weren't silly wastes of time.
I owe my first DM, who built such a wonderful and fully developed world that I'm still drawing from it in my own games 26 years later.
I owe Phantom of the Attic, the local gaming store in Pittsburgh, where I went to college. There was another game shop in Squirrel Hill at the time that I actually went to first, but its name escapes me and I don't think they still are an RPG store. Both of them were nice enough to let me browse through their stuff. I eventually bought a goot bit, but not for the first couple of years.
I owe my parents. I was totally broke in college, and had no money for social activities. D&D didn't cost me anything, the other players had the books (we only had the players Guide and the DMG), so it was a cheap way to pass the time. If this was also describing who I owe for being successful in my life, I could thank my parents, for the same reasons. I drank my way through high school, and being broke in college kept me out of a heck of a lot of potential trouble.