I’m Jason Ian Partin, nicknamed Magik. I perform sleight-of-hand magic around the country, and consult on medical device research and development, quality assurance, and global access to technologies by understanding and applying international laws and regulations overseen by the FDA and EU-MDR.

All of my consulting work centers around global access to safe, affordable, and equitable healthcare. There are 8 Billion of us on Earth, all scrambling for a better life today and for our children tomorrow, and if I’m not improving the situation then the least I can do is step back and make a few people in the room with me smile, gasp, and applaud with a card trick or two.

Previously, I invented a handful of medical devices; cofounded a few biotech companies that were acquired; led project-based learning in engineering, physics, and entrepreneurship at the University of San Diego, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and High Tech High; and co-founded The San Diego Medical Device Association. I’m a co-author on national standards used for safety testing of spine and wrist implants, and have led a few teams to commercialize infusion pumps, respirators, and bone-healing implants.

As a volunteer, I worked with national nonprofits facilitating equitable education through entrepreneurship and project-based learning, and I was a Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids trapped in the San Diego foster system, struggling for consistency. One – I’ll call him JoJo – had 29 social workers, eight group homes, and two foster families before he was 14, and was deemed unadoptable by age 16.  He was emancipated from the system and began to fend for himself – and he was one of the lucky ones. Approximately 300 CASA’s volunteer to cross bureaucratic boundaries and stick with a kid or two through the years; but in San Diego alone, more than 7,500 kids like JoJo are waiting for help, and each year 55,000 reports of child abuse are reported to the approximate 300 social workers trying to help despite their hands being tied by budgets and boundaries.

Nationally, about 400,000 kids are in recognized foster care, and probably two or three times that many are living with extended family or friends and are therefore untracked and unfunded by our government. Of those who emancipate from the system, 85% have been shown to end up in jail – around 30% before they are 21. Of those in prison, they, like other prisoners, have about an 80% chance of returning. Of all emancipated foster youths, only 15% attend college, and fewer than 3% attend graduate school.

The system sucks. I was in and out of the Louisiana foster system and emancipated at age 16, and the first of my family to not serve time in federal prison. But I was lucky, and I had a few coaches and guides to help me along the way.

I joined the army at age 16 (emancipation means you’re an adult on paper, allowed to sign your own contracts) and left for basic training after graduating high school in 1990. I became the youngest soldier in the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, receiving a few awards for combat service. I went on to serve as a paratrooper in the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, and was on two president’s quick-reaction forces in the early 90’s. I was granted a diplomatic passport in 1993, and served six months with a small team as an unarmed peacekeepers in the Middle East. (Judging by recent news, we didn’t succeed.) I completed my service, joined the Louisiana national guard, and used the army college fund to attend LSU and obtain a degree in civil and environmental engineering. I went to graduate school at UAB for biomedical engineering, gained a new set of mentors who inspired me to patent ideas and start companies, and now I have some time on my hand to start a new chapter of life.

Most people who know me for a while say the most remarkable thing about me is my family history. My father is Edward Grady Partin Junior, a convicted felon who went back to school and became a Baton Rouge public defender; and my grandfather was Edward Grady Partin Senior, the Teamster leader who sent Jimmy Hoffa to prison and is considered one of the people involved in President Kennedy’s assassination. He’s portrayed in most Hoffa films and discussed in almost all Hoffa books, and is the focus of the 1966 Supreme Court Case Hoffa vs The United States, which was used to justify the 2001 Patriot Act and other loose interpretations of the 4th Amendment search and seizure protections. He died in 1990, just before I left for the army, and his funeral was covered nationally and attended by Teamsters, the mafia, a small team of FBI agents, the mayor, practically all of the Baton Rouge police force, and a few people interested in Hoffa and my grandfather’s role in President Kennedy’s assassination.

My grandfather’s funeral is the center of a narrative memoir I’m writing – it’s literally the next chapter in life. I’m striving for a coming-of-age literary work that begins in the foster system and ends with the book. Themes would include nature vs nurture, free will, and the role of society in helping children regardless of who their parents are; and, because of my nature, it will end with pondering what we, as society, can do to improve the quality of life for posterity.

It may take a while. Check back if you’d like to see progress, and contact me to brainstorm on how we could collaborate, or to chat about hiring a magician for your next event.

Peace,

Jason Partin