FIGURE PLANT - Key Persons
Alexandra credits her mother with passing on her love of "how all things work." Mom was never happier than when something around the house would break, because it meant she got to learn--in the pre-YouTube-video days, mind you--how to fix it. Thanks to this nurturing, Alexandra found metal shop and wood shop classes in high school riveting (no, we're not above a little fabrication humor). After growing up in southern California she moved to the Bay Area, where she spent time working in property management, as a make-up artist, and as a behavioral therapist working with autistic children. Eventually she began studying product design, but ultimately jettisoned that for the life-learning her cousin's custom motorcycle shop in Concord offered. Soon she was teaching welding and availing herself of the free shop time that came as a perk of her job. When the time came to leave SF, she knew one thing--she was headed somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. After a couple months of camping around Oregon and Washington, Alexandra called Figure Plant, we called her back, and we've been together ever since!
Amos was born on a fold-out couch in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. After discovering his love of welding in high school, he built an eclectic assortment of vehicles including a snow-bike, a gas-powered go-cart using homemade plywood pulleys, and a Morgan 3-wheeled pedal car. He then headed off to study welding and metal fabrication in New Zealand (because we don't teach it in this hemisphere?). Between leaving New Zealand and landing in Portland, Amos earned a bachelor's degree in history (with an art minor), built custom cabinets, and worked in a dashboard factory in New Hampshire, and spent time in Alaska gill-netting, hanging drywall, and working as a lifty (Google it) and kayak guide. And now he just works at boring old Figure Plant making 22' unicorns and metal trees...
What began as a fascination with lawn mower engines and model rockets has turned into a full-time passion for building and making. No project too complicated, no request too extreme, David believes in Figure Plant's ability to take on any creative assignment and make it amazing. As Figure Plant's chief creator with more than 30 years in design and production, David sums up his management philosophy this way: "Artists and artisans are at their best when they're supported, encouraged, and treated with respect and dignity. To me, this ecology is the best possible environment for a company dedicated to supporting the visions of other creative professionals."
Fred has been figuring out how to build things since he was knee high to a grasshopper. Every Christmas his parents would give him a big Lego Technic Expert Builder set, hoping it would keep him busy all day. And every time, he'd have it built in an hour. There were also a few experiments with high-voltage electricity. The results convinced him to stick to batteries and low-voltage electricity for a while. (We're grateful; he may be scarred) Fred has an MFA in Technical Direction, and over 20 years of experience building and engineering scenery for theatre. He still loves working with his hands-welding and wood-butchering-but even more, he loves solving the puzzles of how to build awesome things well.
Born in the foothills of Seqouia Kings Canyon of California's Central Valley, Isaac is a right-brainer somehow descended from left-brain stock. He loved growing up on a ranch surrounded by animals of all kinds (his youth included numerous occasions of goat-midwifery), but his life-path took him in a different direction. Isaac's not sure where his penchant for making art came from, but it pulled him first to Cal-State Long Beach for undergrad, and then to Portland State University for his masters degree. Despite the current move of art toward computers and technology, for Isaac it is all about the classics of the Rennaissance: painting, sculpture, drawing; oils, bronze, charcoal.... As long as it involves getting his hands dirty, count him in! In fact, Isaac found his way to FP after connecting with a couple Planters in blacksmithing class. And it's not just the making: Isaac realized long ago that he loves teaching others. In addition to his work at FP and making his own art, he also tutors people in drawing and even teaches Drawing for Architecture at PSU. If there's one thing Isaac lives for, it's setting challenges for himself and meeting them. When he was 8 he decided to climb to the top of every tree in the 3 surrounding walnut orchards. And then he did it. In a month. Pretty nutty, Professor!
The story of John's life has had WAY more chapters than he ever imagined it would. Lots of theatre in high school and college-where he met owner David Fredrickson in 1985-and then straight to the film business for 10 years (including some tiny little gems like Forrest Gump, A River Runs Through It, The Rock, and Armageddon). Then massage school, and a few years as a massage therapist. Then another decade as part owner and project manager of a small design/build remodeling company. And now somehow he has found a home among the spreadsheets and ping pong parties that come with helping guide the good ship Figure Plant. The burning question is how he found himself on a path involving making things in the first place. As his father has acknowledged, his upbringing did not exactly offer a ton of that experience. "Watching me run a new gas line at his house, my dad once asked me, ‘Did you have another father somewhere that I didn't know about?'"