Stephen Hillenburg

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Stephen Hillenburg
Born	August 21, 1961 (age 45) Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Known for	Spongebob Squarepants (1999-present)
Occupation	Animator

Stephen Hillenburg (born August 21, 1961, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, USA) is an American animator and the creator of Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants.

Before SpongeBob, Hillenburg was a writer and storyboard artist on Rocko's Modern Life. He was a marine biology teacher at what is now the Orange County Ocean Institute. He worked as a marine biologist from 1984-1987.

In (1987) Hillenburg decided to pursue a career in animation, his second lifelong passion. He made several short films, two of which were awarded and played in animation film festivals internationally. His two short films The Green Beret 1991 (which was featured in an episode of "Liquid Television"; MTV misspelled his name "Hillenberg" in the credits) and Wormholes 1992 became popular shorts in several film festivals - and received various awards. While still attending animation school, Hillenburg landed a job on the children's TV series Mother Goose & Grimm from 1991-1993. He then joined the Nickelodeon animated series, Rocko's Modern Life as a writer/producer. While working on Rocko's Modern Life Hillenburg became friends with Tom Kenny, who would later become the voice of SpongeBob, and future SpongeBob collaborators Doug Lawrence, Paul Tibbit and others.

When "Rocko" ended in 1996, Hillenburg developed a concept for a new show about sea creatures, drawing on characters he created for comic book about tidepools in 1989 at the CalArts school. He focused the show on a sponge, which Hillenburg initially drew as a natural sponge but changed to a square sponge because it looked funnier. In 1997, Hillenburg teamed with some of his former "Rocko" colleagues, who helped design the show's backgrounds and characters.

In 1998, Hillenburg pitched the show to Nickelodeon, using an aquarium, character models, a theme song and the storyboard that would become the pilot episode, "Help Wanted." Nickelodeon executives bought the pitch and the series premiered in July 1999.

Hillenburg received a degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation with a focus on marine resources from Humboldt State University. In 1992, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation degree from the California Institute of the Arts. Humboldt State University's "Marching Lumberjacks" include the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song in their repertoire.