By Gayle Gresham –
Left to right, starting from top: Ryan Parker, Poppy Parker, Bill LeVasseur.
On a sunny Colorado spring day I drove my pickup truck along the dirt roads near Elbert, on my way to interview the latest television stars of the new Weather Channel show, “BrainStormers.” Pulling up to the workshop, I saw an older man with a snow-white beard and wearing a straw hat tinkering in the shop. I recognized him as Rob Parker, known as “Poppy.” He walked over and greeted me with a quizzical look. “Can I help you?”
I smiled, realizing that with the giant bale of hay in my truck I looked more like a rancher who lost her cows than a reporter. “My name is Gayle and I am here to interview you for Colorado Country Life.”
He threw back his head and laughed a hearty laugh as we shook hands. I already liked this guy.
And then, he started telling me a story. “My first invention came about after my wife broke the axle of our new 1970 half-ton truck when she brought home a big load of hay for our horses. I figured out how to put on an axle for a one-ton truck by changing the driveshaft and putting on larger wheels,” he said with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “That truck is sitting in the shop, still ready to go.”
I couldn’t have a better introduction to the world of “BrainStormers” and Poppy, his son, Ryan Parker, and Ryan’s best friend, Bill LeVasseur — three men who made it their mission to solve problems by recycling and repurposing old stuff and to share their inventions and inspire others through their reality television show.
Ryan torches wood to give it “flair.”
MEET THE BRAINSTORMERS
What problem do you need to find a solution to? Affordable air-conditioning? Here’s a swamp cooler in a five-gallon bucket. Snow-making machine? Here’s a repurposed air compressor and pressure washer. How about a honey extractor? Here’s a washing machine tub and motor that will work for $200 instead of $4,000.
These are some of the inventions made from repurposed items featured on “Brain- Stormers.” Each of the men brings his own special set of skills and personality to the team. Poppy worked as a can tech specialist at Coors Brewing Company for 35 years. Welding is his specialty, a skill that he also developed while operating his ranch in Jefferson County and Iron Horse Stables in Douglas County. Poppy spent his life inventing things and figuring out how to make things work better for other farmers and ranchers. According to Ryan, Poppy is like the wise old owl with life experience.
Bill (who calls Poppy “Padre”) added, “Padre was able to stop myself and Ryan at times and say, ‘OK, this looks great on the board, but have you thought about this and this?’ And Ryan and I realize he knows because he’s been there and done that stuff.”
BrainStormers Ryan and Bill test a new invention.
Bill served as a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter crew chief during Operation Desert Storm. His technological experience and creativity show up in difficult build situations. And his on-camera experience as an actor makes him a natural for the voice-over work on “BrainStormers.” However, his innate ability for finding just the right piece of junk to complete a project is noticed by his friends.
“Bill has a knack for grabbing things and saying, ‘Hey, what about this?’ and it turns out to be the one thing we were missing,” Ryan said. “I like to call it ‘accidentally perfect.’”
Building the honey extractor exemplified this. After repurposing a washing machine tub and the motor to become the extractor, the guys still needed something to attach the honey frames to at the bottom. Bill walked over to the old truck and happened to see the worn-out clutch plate lying there that had been replaced. He picked it up realizing it was the perfect size to set in the bottom of the tub for the honey frames to be attached to.
Another moment of serendipity happened when Bill set a piece of Lexan (Plexiglas) he planned to use to make a lid for the honey extractor on the back of the truck. And while he was there, he noticed a round lid to a grill. “I picked it up and gasped, thinking ‘No way is this going to fit.’ And then I placed it on the honey extractor and it fit perfectly.”
Ryan has a passion for helping people. He is a real estate agent and a volunteer firefighter for the Larkspur Fire Protection District. On the television show, he lifts and carries items and is jokingly called a “mule” by Bill. But Ryan is often the point of contact for people looking for a solution to a problem or a way to improve a project. He’s the one who stands in front of the white board, mapping out a problem and starting the brainstorming process with Poppy and Bill.
The team works on the motorized honey extractor, repurposing a variety of spare parts.
In talking about the skills they each bring to the show, Ryan said, “Poppy is the tinkerer, Bill is the techie and I am the artist. I like to decorate stuff and make it look pretty.”
Poppy tells the story of the waterwheel: “Bill and I had it finished at 10 that night and we were elated that it worked. And then Ryan said, ‘I’ve got to do something with this.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean? It works!’ And he said, ‘No, it has to look pretty.’”
That night Ryan stayed up until 1 a.m. using a torch to burn the wood to give it a “flair.” Bill and Poppy may kid Ryan about his need to make things look pretty, but they appreciate the results.
“Ryan comes in and does the finishing polish on a project, which is nice,” Bill said.
“And on camera it really pops!” Poppy added.
THE ROAD TO “BRAINSTORMERS”
The sparks for a reality television show started when Ryan and Bill met 12 years ago and became friends. The two men had a mutual interest in building and inventing, along with a passion for sharing that interest through reality television. Ryan and Bill created a video blog eight years ago and began traveling the country spotlighting inventors and showing a slice of America and American ingenuity. The videos evolved when they added Poppy as a technical expert.
The three men started a company, Backyard Genius (BackyardGenius.com) five years ago to come up with inventions that would be helpful to others and to inspire others to be creative in repurposing old items. Through Backyard Genius, the video blog changed from spotlighting other people’s inventions to helping people improve their inventions.
The Syfy channel offered a contract three years ago for a television series, but the project fizzled before the pilot was even filmed. Last year, Outpost Entertainment contacted the men about filming a series that would be weather related after seeing the Backyard Genius video blog. The company filmed the pilot, and Ryan, Bill and Poppy received the call on the Fourth of July that the show was picked up by The Weather Channel.
Ryan and Bill put their heads together to perfect the honey extractor.
Once “BrainStormers” was picked up, filming started in the fall and the challenges began. The team did 27 builds in 12 weeks. According to Bill, “We would tell the filming crew we needed four days for a certain build and they’d say, ‘Great! You’ve got one day.’”
The time constraints pushed the men to figure out how best to work together. “We try to utilize the skills of each of us and complement each other,” Ryan said. “I call Bill ‘the human tornado.’ He has so much energy — you’d better step in or step out. Give him a time frame and he’s off and running. My father and I are more methodical, so initially this was more of a challenge.”
Filming lasted sometimes until 2 a.m. and then resumed at 7 a.m. “As an inventor, you have to fail forward,” Ryan said. “You can’t just come out of the gate with the perfect invention. It evolves. You think, this works well, the concept, but in actual execution there are some hang-ups. Building this stuff takes time, but with the network, there isn’t time.”
Trying to figure out how to get things done from the drawing board to the finished product in a short amount of time took its toll on the guys by the second week of filming. Finally, Bill said, “Ryan, we can sit here and cry and complain about not being able to do something or we can figure out a way.”
And, according to Ryan, that’s the essence of “BrainStormers” and Backyard Genius — it’s all about finding a way.
“BRAINSTORMERS” SERIES PREMIERE
The show premiered in late March and the “BrainStormers” team saw it for the first time with 200 of their closest friends and family at the ViewHouse restaurant in Denver. Everybody laughed while watching the show and shared their thoughts.
“We heard time and time again ‘My dad/brother/aunt does this stuff — rebuilds old things to make new things,’” Bill recalled.
Ryan admitted he was anxious about watching the show, but it was better than he hoped it could be. “I went home after the screening and watched it again in the privacy of my own home and I was honestly entertained.”
Ryan works on “prettying up” projects in the Elbert workshop.
The only negative comments they heard concerned Poppy’s line about Mother Nature in the “BrainStormers” intro and some of the other PG-13 language used during the show. To friends and family it seemed out of character for Poppy, but it was part of the show.
Bill expressed his trepidation earlier of seeing it for the first time with other people. “Am I going to be the Chumlee ‘Pawn Stars’ of the show and the only audio they’re going to use of me is me going, ‘Ugh?’”
But he need not have worried as Bill appeared articulate and interesting on the show, although he does have a propensity to shout out “Whoa!” at an exciting moment (usually right before a commercial break — as requested by the production company).
“The screening party was amazing with a packed house,” Bill said. “Lots of friends and family were there and also inventors from various episodes. I could not be happier. It’s exactly what we hoped it would be — fun, silly, educational, motivating, frustrating and inspiring all at the same time.”
With the premiere over and the first season airing, the men are looking to the future. Poppy talked about their plans by saying, “If we get another season …” and Bill interrupted, “When we get another season.” The team is making preproduction plans with the producer and the network with an eye on season two of “Brain- Stormers.” The initial viewership for the show was good and the Weather Channel is promoting it well through advertising, a website with do-it-yourself instructions for some of the builds and social media.
And whether or not there will be another season of “BrainStormers,” you know the backyard geniuses will continue to do what they love — inventing new things out of old stuff, helping others improve their inventions and showcasing what others have done.
Gayle Gresham is a writer who lives in Elbert, Colorado and feeds cows in her spare time. This is her fourth article for Colorado Country Life.
Get a taste of BrainStormers at weather.com/tv/shows/brainstormers/video/good-deeds-modified-utv. You’ll find more teasers at http://www.weather.com/tv/shows/brainstormers.