WABA Fun, LLC

David McCloskey has been a dedicated kid-at-heart throughout his technology-focused career, but he always kept his toys in the play room. Until now. In 2003, David looked into the void and saw an idea and he put his career as a computer game producer behind him to launch his new vision. (Officially, he was a victim of an opportunely-timed corporate restructuring. What else was he to do with all that time on his hands?)

For David, the void was the wide-open empty spaces between Tinkertoy rods and connectors. His (now patented) innovation literally filled in the gaps. He created safe, durable foam panels that popped into those spaces, adding a new surface that gives children even greater imaginative possibilities. He added fun characters so someone could fly the plane or pilot the ship that his children had just created. And he designed step-by-step visual instructions in 3-D so young builders could easily recreate even the most monstrously complex constructions without even having to read. Numerous connector modifications later, along with a vibrant new color palate and some engineering playtime, and Superstructs construction sets were born.

At the same time David was launching his vision, Jeffrey Barnett was looking to help make a big improvement in the lives of young children. Jeffrey had discovered, as many people do while working for large corporations, that the people who could really benefit from using a specific product where also the people least-likely to actually know about or get their hands on that product.

In Jeffrey’s case, the key product was called Deltasand, made by a small manufacturer in Sweden. Deltasand is a unique mixture of sand and polymers that made it act and feel like wet beach sand, but is completely dry. He saw how product would be fantastic for fine-motor skill development and how its play pattern was completely open-ended. Children could perform specific exercises or make whatever they wanted and develop their own problem-solving skills.

In the blink of an eye, Jeffrey saw how Occupational Therapists could use Deltasand with children with special needs.

Having researched the company and discovering their origins in Sweden, Jeffrey believed that a European company would never do business with his proposed start-up company in the US...until 3 months later while waiting for an elevator in New Orleans. Jeffrey shared the elevator with Jonas Model, the inventor of Deltasand and founder of Delta of Sweden. One quick elevator ride, a dinner invite, and a few months later Delta of North America, LLC was born.

The following year, while attending an Occupational Therapy conference in Colorado, Jeffrey met David and an instant friendship started. It took some time, but they both realized they could do a better job of servicing their customers and getting their products to those who needed them most by joining companies.
WABA Fun now has offices in Loveland, Colorado and in Halmstad, Sweden. Its products have won over 20 toy industry awards are are sold in over 50 countries worldwide.

For more information on our products:

United States or Asia: email info@wabafun.com
Europe: email info@wabafun.eu