Welcome to Creative Dad Company

I think two of the best words in the English language are… What… If.

I mean, if you think about it, all great inventors started with this almost conviction of this statement to bring an idea to life. Whether it was an idea to better humanity by making a task easier to complete, or just simply creating something that is cool.

What if kids could build something with their own hands and actually be proud of it? What if learning felt more like an adventure and less like a worksheet? What if a story pulled a kid in so deep they forgot they were even learning something? I’ve been chasing questions like that for years, working with kids, building projects, trying to turn curiosity into something you could hold or play or read.

For me, the conviction started on a visit to Disney World, or the mothership, as I like to call it. Say what you will about “Disney Adults,” but a Disney trip when you’re a parent is just simply more magical. So we like to frequent the Magic Kingdom as often as we can. But this one trip that we went on was very inspirational for me. I had been working at the Boys & Girls Club for some time at this point in my life and discovered that I had a knack for making activities fun by going over the top. In the first two months of being Teen Center Program Director, we had a giant slingshot made for a big game of Angry Birds. Jonathan, who was the Teen Director at the time, told me he wanted “outside the box programming.” Once I knew that was the direction I needed to go, it was just the beginning. We were at the Magic Kingdom, and they were having one of their little shows in front of the castle. We were walking by, and I saw a little girl in full Elsa gear pull on the hem of her dad’s shirt and ask to be put on his shoulders, and he did so with no hesitation. Then I thought about all my kids back home that probably would never get that opportunity to feel that wonder and magic. I wiped the tears away from my eyes and made a silent agreement that I would bring it to them somehow.

I’ve been at the Boys & Girls Club for over 7 years now. Ever since that trip, I have had a circus for three years, won first place in a Christmas parade because of a 10-foot abominable snowman, held a Double Dare game show/talk show called Mr. Joe’s Career Night, and much more. I am currently the Director of the WorkForce Development Program. I have compiled all of my years of STEM programming into YouthForce, and it has proven itself over and over again by focusing on project-based learning. Which is where the Creative Dad Company has started. What if we could make STEM an experience in the classroom, co-op, or afterschool program? Which then led me to the Creative Dad Studio, a fully operational software that helps you create assets and story elements.

Right now, Creative Dad Studio is a working prototype. Not a finished product, not a polished thing with a bow on it. A prototype. I’ve been building it around a full-time job and a family, which means progress happens in stolen hours, half-finished sketches, and a lot of “let me try this and see what breaks.”

Then I became a dad, and that changed everything about how I saw the work.

Watching my own kids discover the world does something to you. You see a kid stare at a bug on the sidewalk like it’s the eighth wonder of the world. You get asked a question so far out of left field you don’t even have a good answer. And you remember how much can happen when curiosity gets some room to breathe. Kids don’t need permission to wonder. We’re the ones who forget how.

What’s actually being built here

Creative Dad Company is where all of that comes together, and right now there are three things in motion:

Hands-on learning projects. Stuff you can actually make, touch, mess up, and try again. Not theory. Not a worksheet with a fun font.

Creative Dad Studio. A dream project of mine that I’ve been sitting on for a while now, and one I’m finally building instead of just thinking about.

The world of Professor Pumpernickel. Honestly might be my favorite thing I’ve ever worked on. It started during COVID, when the Boys & Girls Clubs shut down and we pivoted to video programming. That version never made it to production. But the idea never left me alone, and it’s grown into something bigger than an idea now. It’s become a duty.

I won’t tell you where the Professor’s adventure goes. I can’t, because I’m still figuring some of it out myself. But I’ll give you glimpses along the way. Little pieces of the world, characters, moments that make me laugh while I’m building it. What an adventure it’s turning out to be.

Some of what I’m making is ready to share right now. Some of it is still sketches on a notepad, half-finished prototypes, questions I haven’t answered yet. You don’t get the finished thing without a whole lot of messy middle first, and I’d rather you see the mess than assume this stuff shows up fully formed.

Why I’m doing it this way

I’ve believed for a long time that it only takes an ounce of confidence to be unstoppable, whether that’s in ministry, in parenting, or in building something new. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t think anybody building something worth building ever does. But I know I was meant to make things for kids, and I know I was meant to be a dad who shows his kids what it looks like to chase an idea all the way through.

So that’s the plan. Sometimes life gets in the way, and I feel like I get set back, but I honestly feel like if I don’t do something with these ideas, the world might not get fixed, but it will for sure be missing out on something fun, and we just can’t have that now, can we?

I’m glad you’re here for this. Reply and tell me what you’re curious about, or just stick around and watch it come together. Let’s see where “what if” takes us.

Will you join me on this Journey ?

Want to try a complete activity with your group? Try the free Cardboard Carnival STEAM lesson.