Ted Baker

I experimented with entrepreneurship for a few years as the founder and CEO of Spacement, a startup directed to reversibly converting ground-floor commercial real estate into open-plan meeting spaces and lodging units. The concepts I developed for the startup led to six U.S. patents and a successful proof-of-concept. The startup, however, ended up being too difficult to maintain during the pandemic, so I decided to move on to new things.

I’m the owner and developer of two commercial buildings in Oregon’s Willamette Valley including the Independence Opera House. Its restoration was a labor of love and an amazing opportunity to learn about construction and commercial real estate development. It was also a great sandbox for innovation. Among other projects, I completely replaced the 1960s storefront with an exact reproduction of the original. This included finding and analyzing historical photographs to determine molding profiles and dimensions. I also invented and implemented a new technique for fabricating reproduction cast-iron columns.

Sometimes I get annoyed with products and try to make them better. Serana was a project that stemmed from my frustration with cleaning grime out of crevices in a toilet seat hinge. I designed, modeled, and 3D printed a better hinge. Then I created a campaign on Kickstarter. Despite some enthusiastic backing from the community, the campaign ultimately fell short of its goal. I still think this product should exist. Maybe someday…