Founder
I keep building the thing that isn't there yet, then getting out of its way.
Spacetaker
Founded 2000. Became Fresh Arts in 2012. Still going.
Houston had no shared infrastructure for artists, so a few of us made some. I sold my truck to file the paperwork. What came of it was a 3,000 square foot resource center, one of the city's first searchable artist registries, and WHAM — a winter art market that put hundreds of thousands of dollars straight into artists' pockets.
We also spent years untangling Houston's cultural arts data into something the city could actually use. I didn't know then that I'd spend the next twenty years doing versions of that same job. Then Hurricane Ike hit the same weekend as our gala and took the funding with it. I went part-time, my successor stepped in, I stayed on the board a while, then stepped aside.
David is a capable and tenacious visionary who brings people of many talents together to accomplish great things. In founding Spacetaker, he created something of value where nothing of its kind existed before. Gardner Landry · Gardner Landry Communications
David is a visionary communicator and artist with a level of "can-do" that I've encountered only rarely. It's the sort of combination that means that if David sets his mind to delivering the moon, you'd be wise to invest in a space suit. Chet Farmer · built Spacetaker.org with him
David not only grew Spacetaker into an effective resource for Houston's art community, but also knew when to grow the management team, which is so hard for most nonprofits. Robert C. Rhodes · former public company CEO
What four of them taught me
None of them worked because of the plan. They worked when enough people wanted them to, and my job turned out to be making that easier rather than making it happen.
The hard part was never the starting. It was noticing when I'd become the thing everyone had to go through, and letting go before that broke something.
I'm not a founder for hire. But this is where everything else came from — the consulting, the coaching, the work in rooms. I've been on the inside of the problem four times.
Four so far
Twenty-seven years. Three of them run fine without me now. The fourth I'm still inside, which is a different kind of work.
Tell me what you're trying to build
I'll tell you straight whether I'm the right person for it, and who is if I'm not.