Jason Paden's backstory...
Updated: Nov 21, 2020
Jason Paden is a multi-faceted artist and inventor who grew up in the Schoharie School District. In school, Jason spent years learning multimedia in the Video Club and eventually graduated early with his Diploma in his Junior Year due to mental health issues that were newly emerging. After completing his Associate’s Degree at the Junior College of Albany, majoring in Visual Arts, he began independent video work such as filming weddings and parties for clients.
Simultaneously and seasonally, Jason also developed a small, seasonal entertainment business that created family based Holiday Productions, Halloween themed hayrides, live puppetry shows and party events. Around that same time, he also became Technical Director/Consultant to many local area stage productions, as well.
However, his most ambitious achievement was the creation of a full sized, transportable, 9-hole castle miniature golf course where customers happily putted there way inside and out of our 20-foot-tall fantasy building. It traveled regionally in Upstate New York from Schoharie County to Herkimer Diamond Mines and the Erie Canal Village to Guilderland and Hunter Mountain’s Fall Festival. He resourcefully designed and built it from scratch on a limited budget and it was well loved by many families for years.
Soon after his long Recovery from major mental illness through his twenties and early thirties with a diagnosis of Schizo Affective Disorder, he discovered NAMI – the National Alliance on Mental Illness, where he became a IOOV presenter. He later went on to become an active NAMI Board Member in Fulton, Montgomery and Hamilton Counties for two years.
Independently, Jason created his own presentation story and became a professional motivational speaker addressing agencies, groups, colleges and schools with a unique custom designed multimedia presentation of his Recovery story, which has been shown at various educational engagements throughout the Northeast.
Today though, Jason has finally finished a 15 year project that evolved his story into a new presentation of sorts involving 14 lovable animated characters each based off of a specific symptom that he’d experienced throughout his dealings with major mental illness. He lovingly calls this colorful cast of characters His Quirkz that seek to destigmatize people’s fears around talking about mental illness.
But what brings you here is his invention called The OopsLoop: a patented a little phone gizmo that uniquely prevents people from dropping their phones, all while helping raise funds for future creative projects that raise mental health awareness! Jason's Quirkz will be also be helping promote The OopsLoop and the OopsLoop will help support some of their exciting and educational future multimedia projects.
It's an exciting time for Jason and his old friend and new business associate Paul Klein as they work together to bring the OopsLoop project to life and help the mental health cause that is important to each of them and their families.
