By David Garza | Reporter
Imagine having to sort through and organize stacked boxes of Lego bricks that stand higher than an 8-year-old boy, with each box containing over 4,000 elements.
That’s exactly the undertaking that Baylor philosophy professor Dr. Pete Younger, his wife Rachael Younger and their two boys must undergo in order to continue their business of selling Lego products. Around June 29, the Younger family finished a seven-month project in which they sorted and organized 108,000 Lego elements that they list and sell on their website.
Younger first began to sell Lego elements in 2014 while he was working on his doctoral degree.
“At first, it was done for fun and education. We weren’t trying to make money with it, or anything more than trying to get stuff out of our house,” Younger said. “During the summer of 2017 is when they decided that we would do it for profit as well.”
This is when Younger & Son LLC was formed. Younger said that he has shipped Lego products to six continents, to faculty at Baylor and to famous Lego artists like Eric Hunter, who has over 43 years of experience building and designing Legos.
“Part of the joy of doing art in something like Legos is the restriction that you’re placing on yourself,” Younger said. “Everything is going to be pixilated and you’ve got a very limited color palette…but part of the beauty of it is that it is done within those constraints.”
In terms of current projects, Younger is working on creating a Baylor-themed Lego desk fan.
“I love teaching— be that here at Baylor or teaching my boys at home, and Lego helps enable that,” Younger said. “The business falls under teaching them. Our primary guiding purpose is education for our boys— that’s the real payoff.”
Abilene sophomore David Tobey, a student of Younger, said Younger cares about the well-being of his students as much as he cares about their grade in the class.
“[Younger] really wants [to] bond with students and he is really passionate about his subject, which makes it a little more interesting,” Tobey said.
Younger appreciates having a job that allows him to work and educate his children at home.
“I’m willing to forgo the security of having a long-term job contract, job security or give up bigger paychecks in order to have a job where I can work at home,” Younger said. “I get to work with my kids and we’re educating them as part of what I’m doing every day. Realizing that was so much closer to my understanding of the good life than anything that I [could get] as a result from going on the job market.”
