Hi Katie! For those who don’t know you, can you tell us a little about your background and what you’re working on now? 

I’m co-owner of Creative Fold, a creative services company that helps inventors, entrepreneurs, and small creative teams bring physical products to life. I started the company eight years ago with Jodi Meusel, and Edoardo Kulp has since joined us as an owner. The three of us met while working together at ThinkFun. 

A lot of our work at Creative Fold is in toys, games, gifts, packaging, playtesting, product development, and manufacturing support. We help people move ideas from “I think this could be something” to an actual product that exists in the world. 

So tell me about Gathering 4 Gardner. 

I’ve taken on an additional role as the new part time Executive Director of Gathering 4 Gardner, or G4G, a nonprofit inspired by Martin Gardner and dedicated to the playful exchange of ideas in the intersections of recreational math, puzzles, magic, science, skepticism, literature, and art. Gardner had a knack for writing with incredible clarity and curiosity, so his articles and books inspired a whole generation to go into science, math, and related fields. 

At first glance, those may sound like two very different roles. But to me, they are deeply connected. In both worlds, I work with inventors, designers, puzzlers, artists, educators, makers, mathematicians, magicians, writers, and wonderfully unusual creative people. 

You’ve said these two roles can feel like “one big hat.” What do you mean by that? 

I sometimes describe my work as wearing two hats: one as owner of Creative Fold and one as Executive Director of G4G. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like one big hat. 

The Creative Fold team has helped plan and run The Gathering, G4G’s biennial event, for almost ten years, so the two worlds already overlap in a practical way. But the bigger overlap is philosophical. Both are about supporting creative people, helping ideas take shape, and building the structure needed for imaginative work to happen. 

The Gathering brings together people from all of those worlds. It’s hard to describe because it’s not quite a math conference, not quite a puzzle convention, not quite an academic event, and not quite a festival. It’s really a Gathering of people who love intellectual joy and sharing their passions. 

Throughout the event there are five-minute TED-like talks, hands-on activities, magic, puzzles, performances, exhibits, conversations in the hallway, and a traditional Gift Exchange where attendees share something they created. The community is full of people who are brilliant in very different ways, but who share a spirit of intellectual play. 

What has been your role with G4G and how has it changed? 

Creative Fold has been helping plan and run the Gathering for almost ten years. As a company, our role is primarily operational: registration, communications, graphics, website, printed materials, event planning, vendor coordination, and all the unglamorous but essential work that makes a complex event actually happen. 

Over time, I’ve come to understand and love the G4G community and to believe in the broader goals of the foundation. Now, as Executive Director, my role is expanding from “make the Gathering happen” to “help the organization move forward.” That’s a big shift, and I take it seriously. 

What does the Executive Director role mean to you? 

It means stewardship. 

G4G has an extraordinary legacy, but it’s also at an important moment. Many of the people who knew Martin Gardner personally are still part of the community, but we also need to think about the next generation. How do we preserve what makes G4G special while making it accessible to new people? How do we support the existing community while broadening our impact? How do we build financial sustainability without turning G4G into something we didn’t intend? 

Those are big questions. My first priority has been listening. I’ve been talking with longtime attendees, board members, donors, newer participants, and people from different aspects of the community to understand what they value most and what they hope G4G will become. 

What have you learned from those conversations so far? 

One theme comes up again and again: G4G is about connection. 

Martin Gardner was a connector. He connected people to ideas, but he also connected people to each other. Someone would send him a puzzle or a mathematical discovery or a strange little object, and he would know exactly who else should see it. That spirit is still very much alive in G4G and we want to do more of it. 

I’m also hearing that people want us to preserve the interdisciplinary nature of the Gathering. Math is central, but G4G is not only about math. It is also magic, puzzles, skepticism, science, literature, games, art, design, education, performance, and play. The best G4G moments happen at the intersections. 

That resonates with me because Creative Fold also lives in the intersections. Product development is never just one discipline. It thrives when different kinds of minds are in the room together. 

How does your toy and game background shape the way you think about G4G? 

It makes me very practical about creativity. 

In toys and games, a beautiful idea is only the beginning. You have to ask: Can people understand it? Can they use it? Can it be made? Can it be mass produced? Can it be explained clearly? 

I bring that same lens to G4G. There are endless wonderful ideas for what G4G could do: public events, videos, archives, publications, educational resources, partnerships, sponsorships, regional gatherings, community calendars, speaker coaching, and more. The question is not whether there are good ideas. There are too many good ideas. The question is which ones fit the mission, which ones the community will support, which ones we can fund, and which ones we have the capacity to execute well. 

That’s where my Creative Fold background helps. I’m used to taking creative possibilities and turning them into a plan. 

What opportunities are you most excited about for G4G? 

I’m excited about finding ways to share G4G’s spirit beyond the biennial Gathering without losing the magic of the Gathering itself. 

One idea I’m exploring is a renewed approach to Celebration of Mind, which is a public-facing outreach version of the Gathering originally centered around Martin Gardner’s birthday. I’m interested in whether G4G can support more in-person, hands-on public events that bring puzzles, recreational math, magic, and playful thinking to broader audiences. 

I’m also interested in making G4G’s incredible archive of ideas more accessible. There are talks, papers, gifts, videos, stories, and historical materials that could be better organized and shared. G4G has decades of intellectual play embedded in its history. We need to be thoughtful about preserving it and smart about making it available. 

And I’m excited about partnerships. There are so many adjacent communities (toy and game inventors, puzzle designers, math educators, museums, science communicators, artists, makers, magicians, skeptics, and creative technologists) who overlap naturally with G4G. 

What is the biggest challenge? 

Sustainability and resources. 

G4G has done a lot with a very small structure. That’s part of its charm, but it is also a vulnerability. We need stronger systems for fundraising, donor relationships, sponsorships, partnerships, and volunteer engagement. 

At the same time, we have to be careful. G4G shouldn’t become overbuilt or overly corporate. The looseness, generosity, and surprise are part of what make it unique. So the challenge is to build enough structure to support and grow the organization without squeezing out the joy. 

That balance is very familiar to me from product development. Too little structure and ideas never make it to market. Too much and the spark gets lost. 

What do you wish more people in the toy and game world knew about G4G? 

I wish more people knew that G4G is full of their people. 

If you’re a toy inventor, game designer, puzzle creator, magician, artist, maker, teacher, writer, performer, or simply someone who loves clever ideas, there is a good chance you would find something at the Gathering that feels like home. 

The toy and game industry is full of people who are fascinated by mechanisms, patterns, rules, surprise, storytelling, and delight. Those are very Gardner-like interests. I would love to see more people from the play industry become aware of the Gathering and Celebration of Mind, not because I want to turn them into toy industry events, but because there is such natural overlap. 

Fill in the blank: I’m lucky that… 

I’m lucky that my work keeps bringing me into rooms full of creative, curious people. And I’m lucky that my worlds keep colliding in interesting and unexpected ways. 

Whether I’m helping an entrepreneur develop a product or helping G4G think about its future, I get to work with people who care deeply about ideas. That is a pretty wonderful place to spend your career.