Why [bon]fire.

[bon]fire represents:

the ‘good’ fire that already lies within each of us, both as individuals and as teams.

the ‘good’ fire that we co-create + circle around together to make real what we already know is possible.

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After 30+ years supporting transformative innovation projects, Christian founded [bon]fire to help leaders, teams + organizations honor the shared human experience of designing future possibilities together.

Previous Work.

Prior to founding [bon]fire, Christian served as:

  • Chief Growth Officer — THINK Learning Studio + THINK Global School

  • Principal | Research and Strategy — Roto (design-build studio)

  • Founder — The WONDER Project | + | Co-Founder — Wonder, by Design

  • Director of the Center for Innovation — All Saints Episcopal School

  • Vice President, K-12/University Practice | + | Co-leader, The Third Teacher+ studio — CannonDesign (architects)

  • Founder — Prototype Design Lab

  • Founder — Be Playful Design

  • CEO | President — DesignShare (subsidiary of Fielding Nair International school planners)

  • Director of Educational Research — Huckabee Architects

  • Classroom Educator — Oakridge School, Friendship Public Charter School, Bryn Mawr School (for Girls), Rivers School, Miami Valley School, + Steamboat Mountain School | + | student teacher — American Language School (Japan) + a BIA boarding school (Navajo Reservation)

Personal Life.

Education: Christian received his Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education + his BA in English from Indiana University (Bloomington).

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Event Founder: Christian has (co)founded a range of innovative professional/leadership retreats, including: Hakuba Forum (Japan), RE-ED (Atlanta), Learning off the Grid (Boulder), “Curiosity Lab” (various), Prototype labs (various), + TEDxBloomington (with one of the top-10 most-watched global TEDx talks).

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Speaker: Additionally, he’s a frequent keynote speaker at US/international conferences + has spoken at 4 different TEDx events.

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At home, he is:

  • married to Karla, a life long education leader;

  • the father to two teenagers, Beckett + Berkeley, as well as an exchange student ‘son’, Paul;

  • a decidedly ‘amateur’ chicken + Nigerian Dwarf goat farmer;

  • a winter ‘rucker’ who enjoys hiking while carrying a heavy pack so he can get a bonus work-out while wandering around the forest;

  • someone who likes to experiment (aka make honest mistakes) with a variety of building projects in his barn or out on the back property;

  • always dreaming of one day living on 100 acres of woods, a stream, mossy trails, meadows, + a 200 year old barn with a massive stone fireplace somewhere in rural Maine; this will be [bon]fire’s basecamp.

Previous

Projects