The Happy Workers

We're crazy about new ideas, groovy design, and the fun and frolic of our fantastic existence.

Meet the Happy Worker geeks...

Happy Worker Team

Kris Schantz - Mr. Happy Worker
Shirley Yee - Ms. Happy Worker
Heidi Bedore - Happy Heidi
Dani Crosby - Drawin' Dani
Marcelo Vieira - Marcelo the Psychopathic Programmer
Anna Birjevaia - Anna Nirvana-Banana
Evan Vincent - Kid Vincent
Stephanie Young - Steph-the-Sneak
Rod Thacker - Legal-Eagle-Beagle
Jason Herod - Bean Counter

Creative Teams

GeekMan Action Figure
SuperMom Action Figure
MoneyMan Action Figure
BossMan Action Figure

Kris's Bio

Kris was born and raised in Calgary, and as he grew up, he never grew out of his toys. Over the years Kris played trumpet, piano and drums... and even went to band camp. Several times. He enjoys hiking, except when he gets marooned on mountain peaks overnight. Kris loves learning and is intrigued by pretty much everything.

Code Name: Mr. Happy Worker (aka Taskmaster)

Super Powers: Is Always Right; Bad pun making; Super tasks juggler; Crazy ideas generator; Problem zapper; Just-in-time timeliness; Idealistic optimism

Vulnerabilities: Junk food, Bad movies, Pizza, Random acts of kindness

Junk Foods: Gummi bears, gummi worms, gummi coke bottles, gummi fruits, gummi fish, gummi berries, chocolate bars (all), jalapeno chips, jello, chocolate chip cookies, pop, ice cream floats, doughnuts, chocolate cake, and, well, you get the picture.

Quotes: "If it's easy to do, it's not worth doing"
"You can do it!"
"That's not a problem."

Past Toys: Lego, Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, most board games, Atari

Previous Jobs: Web product manager, mad science guy (chemistry research assistant), pizza dough maker, farm hand, paperboy

"Education": B. Sc. in Biochemistry, McGill University

Shirley's Bio

Shirley grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario, and her formative years were fairly typical: summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. Besides creating toys she also paints and writes. Some of it's actually good. (Note: but she didn't write this!)

Code Name: Ms. Happy Worker (aka Master of Elective Operations)

Super Powers: Able to make anything & everything better; Is Never Wrong; Internet surfing record holder; Master case packer

Vulnerabilities: Caffeine and sugar, Sleep, Want it all attitude

Past Toys: Etch a Sketch, Barbie-look-alikes, Smurfs, Lego

Junk Foods: Slurpees, potato chips, cheesecake and swedish berries, and any Junk Food that Kris has bought for himself

Quotes: "Where's the magic 8-ball?" (Shirley's main decision making tool)
"What if we do it this way?"
"I'm going to Google that."

Previous Jobs: Web developer, spud researcher (potato geneticist), Ice cream server at Denise's Dairy Delights

"Education": B. Sc. in Biology, McGill University

Heidi's Bio

Heidi was born and raised in Belleville, Ontario, and later escaped to Ottawa for higher learning purposes. Heidi grew up playing with her sister and learned how to be a very cooperative game-player. Heidi enjoys soft animals, especially the overweight variety, and will cop a feel of street animals whenever possible. She enjoys walking, listening to rock music, and playing air drums.

Code Name: Tidy Heidi, Happy Heidi, Hasty Heidi

Super Powers: Aggressive walking style, soft animal radar

Vulnerabilities: Bolero, cluttered desks

Junk Foods: Cookies, pies, wine gums, sour coke bottles, beaver tails, Thrills, chocolate and peanut butter combinations, and mom-made baked goods

Quotes: "Good times."

Past Toys: Play dough, Lego, board games, Nintendo, Glowworms, Spirograph, colouring, My Little Pony, Weebles, couch cushion forts, Magnadoodle

Previous Jobs: Employee supervisor, project coordinator, garden centre worker, gas station attendant, chicken-catcher, canteen worker, papergirl

"Education": B.I.B. in International Business, Minor in Spanish, Carleton University

Dani's Bio

Dani was born in Toronto and raised in Oshawa (aka "The Shwa")… home of more car plants than you can shake a hockey stick at. While her favorite pastime is drawing, she's also a big fan of eating ice cream in the winter time and a chicken chip bake on special occasions. (No, we don't know what a chicken chip bake is… and we're not sure we want to find out...)

Code Name: Dani Draws

Super Powers: Rendering of grinning glue, power-sketching, fast walking, extreme cookie eating, super crazy commuting, good humor rays, making new "friends"

Vulnerabilities: Naps, pork buns, B horror movies, cute aliens, and fat, lumpy cats that need hugs

Junk Foods: Popeye candy sticks, wonder bar, jug of gum, breakfast desserts, Mrs.Vickies sea salt and malt vinegar chips, poutine, toasted baloney sandwiches, and lots of Thrills gum (aka soapy flavored chew)

Quotes: "Oh boy"
"To boldly go where no one has gone before"
"Does anyone want some cookies? Oh - I ate half of the box for breakfast…"

Past Toys: Thunder Cats and Jenga

Previous Jobs: Drawing instructor, associate of many sales, lawn mover

"Education": B.A. Illustration Sheridan College

Marcelo's Bio

Marcelo was born and bred in hot & sunny Brazil... but strangely, he prefers a chilly winter to the beach. Known for coffee excess - tightly correlated to his late night coding binges - and his past love of humongous large lunches. Despite his horrific tendencies, he's a happy & friendly guy.... go figure! 

Code Name: Marcelo the Psychopathic Programmer, Marcelo Elo Elo

Super Powers: Extreme coffee destroyer, coding, knuckle cracking

Vulnerabilities: coffee, computers, computer games, horror books, scary movies, rainy and dark mornings, hot days, pasta, gadgets

Junk Foods: McDonald's, pizza, cookies

Quotes: "Oh! Sh....!"
"I'm always confused with this recycling program"
"Windows Vista pisses me off"

Past Toys: Sega Master System, Monopoly, Hero Quest, single-player fantasy gamebooks, Horror tabletop games

Anna's Bio

Anna was born in St.Petersburg, Russia into a very artistic family. However, Anna was born almost talent less (or so we thought). Upon moving to Denver, Colorado, she began writing, singing, and dancing. Inspired by her mom, she enrolled in ballet classes but discovered that ballet was not her forté and spent more time singing and writing. Her family picked up and moved to Toronto where she found herself attending Rosedale Heights School of Arts and she's been inspired to write even more.

Code Name: Anna Nirvana-Banana

Super Powers: Triple lingual, near traffic timeliness, and sappy love song writing

Vulnerabilities: Sleeping-In, Day Dreaming, Caffeine, Sugar and Music.

Junk Foods: Pizza, Anything and almost Everything in McDonald’s, Gummy Candies, Chocolate, Trifle Cake, Cheesecake, and pretty much everything where sugar is an ingredient.

Quotes: “Transit hates me!”
“I don’t know”
“Silence”

Past Toys: Porcelain Dolls, Lego, Tea Sets, Life Size Baby Dolls, Barbie.

Previous Jobs: The complain go-to girl, Flower Girl, Cheery Cashier, Meat-Spert.

"Education": Still a student…Rosedale Heights School of the Arts

Evan's Bio

Evan is a Toronto native. Raised on hand-me-down transformers he rapidly grew a taste for toys that turn into other toys in a complicated fashion. After being temporarily corrupted by video games, Evan found his love for toys rekindled by the folks at Happy Worker. Evan is a co-op student from Ursula Franklin Academy. He likes music, movies and martial arts. Over the years Evan has acquired a black belt in karate, he is known to be a casual player of bass, guitar, violin and steel pans.

Code Name: Kid Vincent (aka that co-op kid)

Super Powers: Typing fingers of steel, super alertness, Supersonic speed shelf building

Vulnerabilities: Guitar Hero, Hormones, Tofu, Jermaine Dupree

Junk Foods: Oreos, Hickory Sticks, Chocolate involving hazelnuts, Dunkaroos, Smartfood

Quotes: “I think I’m buying lunch”
“What do you guys want to listen to?”
“Sorry I didn’t hear you, I was to busy playing with this Hulk toy”

Past Toys: Transformers, Lego, Batman and accompanying gadgets/vehicles, Playmobile

Stephanie's Bio

Stephanie was born and raised in Toronto, and hasn’t been too far away from it. She enjoys swimming and was most likely a mermaid in her past life. Other details are somewhat sketchy… however, she’s known to be fussy about flowers, has taught kids who’s the boss, and is in serious need of an immediate chocolate intervention.

Code Name: Steph-the-Sneaky-Sneakster

Super Powers: can spot a recycling bin from miles away, expert tin foil hat maker, mega movie watching, mad alien painting skillz, expert baby management

Vulnerabilities : cameras, milk (but she goes cuckoo for milk chocolate… as well as anything else with chocolate…), cheesy chick-flicks, scary movies, sports, a blank piece of paper, riddles, jokes, or anything even somewhat funny

Junk Foods: chocolate, chips, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate tarts, hot chocolate, dark chocolate, Mars bars, mint chocolate, Lindt chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, Easter eggs, fuzzy peaches, ice-cream…. and better yet, an ice cream shake mixed with all of the above.

Quotes: “That’s recycling.”
“I have a slight case of germaphobia”
“I’m hungry.”

Past Toys: Barbies, play dough, empty pots and pans, Lego, Rubik’s cube (that she has yet to solve), water babies.

Rod's Bio

Rod manages legal and corporate affairs for Happy Worker, and is our only team member that's fully fluent in legalese.

Rod currently serves as Vice President, Business Development & Corporate Affairs for InQuent Technologies, where he manages all legal aspects of InQuent’s operations, business and customer relationships. As well, he has overall responsibility for the Company’s human resource functions. Prior to joining InQuent in September 2000, Rod practiced corporate and securities law at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, LLP in Toronto, Ontario. His practice focused on corporate financings, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures for clients in the telecommunications, information technology and financial services industries. Rod holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Waterloo and a law degree from the University of British Columbia.

Jason's Bio

Jason manages Happy Worker's finance and accounting strategies, and he makes sure our fiscal house is in order.

Jason currently serves as Manager, Electricity Operations Reporting & Control for Ontario Energy Savings Corp., as well as President of JH Consulting Services. Jason previously held senior financial roles including Vice President, Finance for InQuent Technologies Inc., Manager of Reporting & Analysis for SBC DataComm in Chicago, and Controller of Ameritech's Canadian operations. Before joining Ameritech, Jason was a senior audit associate for Coopers & Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, with clients representing a wide range of industries, including environmental & recycling, technology, distilling, pharmaceuticals, polymer & chemical, steel production, manufacturing and distribution. Jason earned his Chartered Accountant designation in 1999 and holds a bachelor's degree from Wilfrid Laurier University with majors in economics and psychology.