I’m Jason Partin.

I occasionally perform close-up magic shows and lead teams for projects. This is a nonlinear background story to show how that happened.

One of the more remarkable things about my background is that my grandfather was Edward Grady Partin Senior, the Baton Rouge Teamster leader famous for sending Jimmy Hoffa. He was in and out of prison for things ranging from manslaughter to kidnapping to racketeering and extortion, and he was one of many people involved in killing President Kennedy.

My father, Edward Grady Partin Junior, was the town drug dealer who met my mom in high school. Nine months later, I was born.

I bounced in and out of the foster system. In 1980 a stranger around the age of my grandfather was with his wife and they saw my mother and her then-boyfriend with me in a bar. He smiled and asked what he thought was my parents if he could show me a magic trick.

I was 8 years old (yes, we were in a bar, but it served food and we were having lunch) and I remember that was a day my life changed for the better. The stranger introduced me to sleight of hand magic; though he was an average performer, he was kind and generous and taught me two tricks that I still perform (and teach) today.

I became an officer in the International Brotherhood of Magicians Baton Rouge Pike Burden Honorary Ring #178 in 1984 and would serve in different capacities over the next couple of decades. But first I petitioned to become emancipated from my family in 1989, when I was 16 years old; and, I like to add, the recent winner of Louisiana’s state magic competition in the junior-age category.

I joined the army at age 16 and left for basic training at 17 and became – or at least was told I became – the youngest soldier in the first Gulf war of 1990-1991. I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment’s anti-armor company, Delta-Company (nicknamed the Delta Dawgs), which led the final battle of the war and took and then destroyed Kamasiyah Airport.

After the war I served on two presidents’s quick-reaction forces. In 1993 I was granted a diplomatic passport for unarmed peacekeeping in the Middle East (according to recent news, we did not succeed). I returned to the United States and was honorably discharged and used the G.I. Bill to attend LSU and earn my first engineering degree. I left Louisiana again, but this time for graduate school instead of the army.

I co-invented a few medical devices, mostly bone and soft tissue implants to accelerate healing of broken and arthritic bones, then co-founded companies centered on the technologies. I spent a decade doing that work, and served on national and international committees setting global healthcare guidelines, regulations, and laws, like the ASTM, ISO, FDA, and EU-MDR (American Society of Testing and Materials, the International Standards Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, and the European Union Medical Device Regulations).

Between start-up companies, I created and led hands-on engineering and physics courses at universities, and worked with nonprofit organizations to put hands-on entrepreneurship programs into public schools. And I continued to perform magic at bars and restaurants at home and while traveling.

One of my many quirks is that I strive to make my hobbies profitable enough to be sustainable or more. Wrestling doesn’t count; I wrestled in high school (and was co-captain of the Belaire High Bengals), with the Fort Bragg team, and for LSU (where I was co-president of the revised LSU Tigers under the mentorship Coach Dale Ketelsen); but there are few opportunities to make wrestling profitable. But for all of my other hobbies I had side-gigs while doing what most people call a day job. I’ve been a magician, rock climbing guide, gardener, chef, consultant (whatever that means), and more.

My body doesn’t allow me to wrestle or rock climb much any more, but magic has persisted since I was eight years old.

Currently I’m a retired engineer, part-time consultant, and magician whenever an opportunity presents itself. Going forward, I’m trying to become an author. I’m using this web page to practice writing a memoir by writing a memoir. In other words, I’m learning by doing.

I assuming that learning to tell a complex story in writing is like the classes I created and led in engineering and entrepreneurship: get an idea, prototype it, test it, learn from the real world, and iterate that idea again and again until you have something that works. Art, like life and innovating new products or ideas, is an iterative process of continuous improvement.

The book blogs on this webpage change frequently as I learn and iterate. Feel free to check back whenever you’d like, or to reach out with constructive feedback. And, of course let me know if you’d like to discuss a project or magic show; those are still my side-gigs.

Peace,

Jason Ian Partin