Meet the Creative Team
How it all began...
Sylvia Medina is someone who is passionate about the environment and the animals that live in this world. As a youngster, she loved to hike and enjoy the wilderness and especially loved animals. She took this passion and dedicated herself to becoming an Environmental Engineer where she could help make a difference.
Another passion Sylvia found was children! When her twins were born she knew she wanted to instill in them the passion of being steward of our environment. So when Sylvia's twins were infants - she found herself watching television shows for kids. This made her realize that there were very few programs about environmental stewardship and endangered species preservation for children. So one early morning - about 1:30 am - while rocking her baby girl to sleep, she came up with the idea of creating stories and products that teach children about the environment and the world around them. So the Green Kids Club was created.
President
Sylvia M. Medina
Sylvia is the president, primary author, and creative director of the Green Kids Club. She has spent her career focused on environmental issues and helping to preserve animal welfare.
She developed the Green Kids Club concept, which would help her children, as well as other children around the world, learn early positive environmental habits that they could share with others. Sylvia also founded the Snake River Animal Shelter, East Idaho's only non-profit animal sheltering facility, to fill a need in the community.
Illustrator
Joy Eagle
Joy Eagle has always been drawing. As a child, she found that she could improve her grades if she included pictures. She was in the Argonne/INL drafting group for nearly 30 years, starting as a draftsman and advancing to drafting manager. Upon retiring, she returned to fine art with the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho.
Joy finds her 4 children and 5 grand kids to be amazing and wishes they lived closer to Idaho Falls. She led her children's school to second place in an Idaho recycling competition when she was PTO president.
She is an active member of the Eastern Idaho Chapter of the VMCCA, an old car club. One of the yearly activities for the club is to clean up the roadside at Market Lake.
Joy recycles, winterizes her home to save energy, and constantly watches for ways to improve her environment.
Illustrator
Andreas Wessel-Therhorn
Veteran former Disney animator is from Münster, Germany. He has been working in animation for over 32 years for, among others, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Warner Bros., and Universal Studios. His many credits include Hercules, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, and Mary Poppins Returns. We are pleased and excited to have Andreas illustrating our Classic Green Kids Club stories.
See IMDB for other credits
Illustrator
Morgan Spicer
Morgan has illustrated over 40 books and created thousands of portraits (lots of puppy ones)! She graduated from Syracuse University’s BFA program in 2012. Shortly after graduation Spicer interned and then worked for a small animation studio in NYC while walking dogs part time. Morgan lives in the woods by the sea with her husband, Zack Brown, and their five rescue pups who inspire her everyday. She has currently illustrated 10 books with Green Kids Club and is our main illustrator for our Environmental Heroes series. Morgan works through her company, Bark Point Studio.
Web Designer | Online Manger
Jadon Schemers
Jadon is a high schooler set to graduate in 2024, specializing in working with HTML and CSS and video editing in Premiere Pro. He gained certifications in both areas in his first year of high school. Enjoying camping, hiking, and nature photography, he's always been inclined to care about the environment, and Green Kids Club is a progression of that. Jadon keeps the Green Kids Club websites up-to-date, edits the environmental heroes interviews, runs and updates the Green Kids Club Amazon store, including Kindle e-books, store brand product listings, and more.
Stephanie Meyers
Stephanie Meyers provides support to Green Kids as an Editor.
Researcher
Grace Peters
Grace Peters’ love for animals started as a toddler, preferring nonfiction ape and monkey books to fairytales. Her love for animals grew alongside her blossoming love for writing. At age 5, she began her research and writing “career” by creating the first of many PowerPoint presentations to convince her parents to consent to a pet chinchilla; this was quickly followed by additional works on teacup pigs, hermit crabs, and hedgehogs. Though this persuasive campaign didn’t work, she remains passionate about research and writing about animals and conserving the beautiful species that inhabit our earth. In her free-time, she enjoys ice hockey, water sports and hiking.
Plush Designer
Susan Sofia-McIntire
Susan Sofia-McIntire has over 26 years experience in the toy industry, 18 of which has been spent developing and running her own independent consulting company, Susan Sofia Development. Susan started her career at Hasbro, specializing in the Playskool Baby Division. Her toys and parent aides have won a Platinum Oppenheim award, and have been featured in Parents Magazine, Right Start catalogs and featured on the Today Show. Susan has also developed and shares interest in several design and engineering patents for some of her clients. Her latest client and patent pending success is the Zen Swaddletm from Nested Bean which received the 2012 Innovation Award at the ABC Juvenile Trade Show in Atlanta.
Developing items for parents and children alike that comfort, protect and educate is Susan's mission. She is therefore very proud and honored to be a member of the Green Kids Club team. Using imagination and over two hundred globally influenced plush patterns and designs, Susan is creating soft, educational plush animal sculptures to help children grow and learn.
As a mother of two, Susan has first hand knowledge of the needs of parents, as well as the importance of a child's health and education. The Green Kids Club concept is a natural progression to give back! She truly supports environmental stewardship.