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, and in that time a stranger saw my mother and her boyfriend with me in a bar and introduced me to sleight of hand magic. I was 8 years old (yes, we were in a bar, but it served food and we were having lunch). In 1989 I petitioned to be emancipated. I joined the army at age 16, became a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and served on two presidents’s quick-reaction forces.

I fought in the first Gulf war of 1990-1991, Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In 1993 I was granted a diplomatic passport for unarmed peacekeeping in the Middle East (according to recent news, we did not succeed). I  used the G.I. Bill to earn my first engineering degree.

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. 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.

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.

Currently, I’m a magician. It’s the most consistent side-gig I’ve had since I was eight years old.

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. It’s 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.

When one of my students once asked my advice for making a resume, without thinking I responded “Get your name dot com, and be that.” I was surprised at how much sense that made to me. I registered for JasonPartin.com later that day, and now here we are.

In my experience, most people don’t struggle with technical concepts of things like engineering, music, writing, or building a business, they struggle with the persistence and perseverance necessary to follow their own path. As this web page shows, prototypes don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be out there, and you have to continuously learn and improve from real-world feedback.

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