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Altitude Trampoline Park Announces Mike Stout as Vice President of Franchise Development

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Premier Family-Friendly Entertainment Destination Expands Leadership Team to Strengthen Franchise
Development Operations and Spearhead Growth

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2 years ago

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Last Updated on September 5, 2024 by Daily News Staff

DALLAS /PRNewswire/ — Altitude Trampoline Park, the leading family-friendly entertainment franchise, has announced the appointment of Mike Stout as the company’s Vice President of Franchise Development, effective immediately. In this role, Stout will utilize his extensive experience to lead the brand’s franchise recruitment, real estate, and construction initiatives.

“With our former Vice President of Development, Robert Morris, bringing his talents to Altitude’s newest sister brand, The Pickle Pad, we saw the perfect opportunity to bring Mike’s impressive track record and invaluable expertise to the brand. Altitude is nearing 100 locations globally, and we believe Mike’s skills will be instrumental in growing our franchise recruitment initiatives,” said Mike Rotondo, CEO of Altitude Trampoline Park. “The past several years has consisted of remarkable momentum, and to align with our ongoing development, it is crucial for us to expand our leadership team with industry experts, like Mike. He is a seasoned leader known for delivering strong business results and fostering meaningful connections with franchisees, and we’re eager to bring his strategic vision for growth to Altitude.”

Bringing more than three decades of domestic and international franchising experience, Stout has a history of implementing successful growth strategies. His leadership has played a key role in the opening of over 1,500 units spanning multiple continents and industries. Prior to Altitude, Stout held senior franchise and business development roles with companies including Shipley Do-Nuts, Save-A-Lot Food Stores, Papa John’s, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. An expert in the franchise industry, Stout has led development teams in the areas of growth initiatives, franchise recruitment, site selection, and construction. Stout will bring his expertise to Altitude to assist in refining the brand’s growth strategies as the brand continues to expand worldwide.

“I am honored to join Altitude’s exceptional team and to work closely with the brand’s current and prospective franchisees. 2023 was a pivotal year for Altitude, with 25 deal signings, and we are already gaining notable momentum in 2024 with 12 planned park openings,” said Mike Stout. “Altitude’s business model provides an enticing investment opportunity for franchise candidates, offering safe, family-fun attractions, a diversified mix of revenue streams including its membership program and private event packages, and significant growth potential across the nation. I believe Altitude presents a strong value proposition, and I look forward to working with new franchise candidates who are passionate about being involved in their communities and providing a go-to destination for family-friendly fun.”

Altitude Trampoline Park is owned by Indoor Active Brands, a platform company that focuses on indoor entertainment concepts. Most recently, Indoor Active Brands announced the launch of its latest brand, The Pickle Pad, an indoor pickleball playground featuring a chef-inspired restaurant, bar, and yard games for all ages. Established by NRD Capital, Indoor Active Brands utilizes industry experience in the family entertainment and restaurant industries to support and assist its franchisees.

The brand is actively seeking qualified candidates to help grow its footprint throughout the U.S. in Kansas City, MO, Minneapolis, MN, Las Vegas, NV, Denver, CO, among others. To learn more about franchise opportunities and upcoming store openings, contact Kailee Apodaca at kailee@atphq.com or visit www.altitudefranchise.com.

About Altitude Trampoline Park
Altitude Trampoline Park is a premier family-friendly entertainment destination offering cutting-edge attractions and Party Packages to accommodate all of life’s most meaningful celebrations. Altitude is the home for active family fun! The brand offers children’s birthday party packages and special events, providing two hours of unlimited jump time and access to all of Altitude’s attractions, including trampolines, playgrounds, basketball, dodgeball, interactive games and more. Altitude’s successful $10 Endless Jumps Membership program allows children unlimited access to the brand’s attractions for a fixed price, offering a great way for families to stay together and play together all year long. Nearing 100 locations worldwide, Altitude parks are centrally located and easily accessible, making it the convenient, budget friendly choice for families in 2024. More information can be found at altitudetrampolinepark.com.

About Indoor Active Brands
Indoor Active Brands is a platform company focused on owning and operating franchising concepts in the indoor family entertainment industry. Created by NRD Capital, Indoor Active Brands currently consists of Altitude Trampoline Park and The Pickle Pad. Indoor Active Brands leverages years of experience in the family entertainment and restaurant industries to provide unmatched support for its franchisees. For more information about Indoor Active Brands visit www.indooractivebrands.com. 

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SOURCE Altitude Trampoline Park

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The Substitute Teacher Who Wanted Blueprints of Our House

A fifth-grade assignment took a strange turn when a substitute teacher asked students to draw schematics of their homes. What followed — a wildly fictional floor plan and a priceless reaction from my mom — turned into one of my funniest childhood memories.

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3 days ago

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December 3, 2025

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Last Updated on December 3, 2025 by Daily News Staff

Comedic illustration of a 1970s–1980s elementary school classroom with a substitute teacher holding a blueprint while confused fifth graders draw exaggerated house schematics, including a two-story doghouse.  

The Substitute Teacher Who Wanted Blueprints of Our House

Elementary school memories tend to blend together — cafeteria pizza, playground arguments, the eternal struggle of times tables — but every once in a while, something happens that sticks with you for life. For me, that moment came in the fifth grade during a week when our regular teacher was out, and we cycled through substitute teachers like we were testing models for durability. By midweek, in walked a substitute with a mysterious, slightly intense energy — the kind of vibe that suggested he either meditated at dawn or worked a graveyard shift doing something he couldn’t talk about. We settled into our seats, expecting worksheets or quiet reading time. But nope. He had other plans. “Today,” he announced, “we’re going to draw schematics of our houses.” Schematics. Not drawings. Not little houses with smoke coming out of the chimney. Actual blueprint-style schematics. He wanted the layout of our bedrooms, our parents’ rooms, and where the pets slept. Every detail. Now, to be fair, Highlights Magazine did have a feature that month teaching kids how to draw floor plans. So maybe he was just a bit overenthusiastic about cross-curricular learning. Or maybe — and this is my completely rhetorical adult theory — he worked the graveyard shift as a cat burglar gathering intel between heists. Just moonlighting between blueprints. While the rest of the class tried their best to recreate their actual homes, my imagination sprinted in a totally different direction. The house I drew had:
  • A massive master bedroom with an oversized bathroom for my parents
  • Separate bedrooms for us kids on the opposite side of the house
  • A kitchen placed right in the center like a command center
  • And the dog — the true VIP — had a luxurious two-story doghouse
I had basically created a dream home designed by a 10-year-old watching too much Fantasy Homes by the Yard. A young African American boy shows his mother an exaggerated, hand-drawn house schematic with unrealistic room layouts and a two-story doghouse, while she reacts with a mix of concern, confusion, and relief in a cozy 1970s–1980s living room. Later that day, my mom asked the usual question: “So, what did you guys do today?” “We drew schematics of our house,” I said casually. The look on her face was instant and intense. She wasn’t panicked, but there was definitely a “Why does a substitute teacher need to know the exact layout of my home?” expression happening. Parental instincts activated. But then I showed her my diagram. She stared at it. Blinked. Then sighed with massive relief. “This isn’t our house,” she said. “Nope! I made it up,” I replied proudly. Her shoulders relaxed so much she probably lost five pounds of tension in one instant. If the substitute was secretly planning a heist, my masterpiece of misinformation would have sent him to the wrong house entirely. Looking back, the whole moment feels like a sitcom setup — a mysterious substitute collecting “house schematics,” me creating a completely fictional piece of architecture, and my mom going on a full emotional journey in under 30 seconds. Maybe he was just excited about the Highlights Magazine floor-plan activity. Or maybe — just maybe — he moonlighted in cat burglary. We’ll never know. But if he was, I like to think I threw him completely off the scent.

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How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate

How China cleaned up its air pollution: Beijing’s air quality went from hazardous to good while Delhi and Lahore still struggle. Discover how China dramatically reduced pollution since 2013—and why cleaner air may have unintended consequences for global warming and climate change.

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December 2, 2025

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How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate

How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate

Gemma Ware, The Conversation
Delhi: 442. Lahore: 334. Beijing: 16. These are the levels of PM 2.5, one of the principle measures for air pollution, on November 19. As Pakistanis and Indians struggle with hazardous air quality, in Beijing – a city once notorious for its smog – the air quality is currently rated as good. Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government was so concerned about pollution that it introduced temporary restrictions on cars, shut down factories and stopped work on some construction sites. The measures worked and one study later found that levels of air pollution were down 30% during the period when the temporary Olympic restrictions were in place. It would take a few more years before the Chinese government implemented a clean air action plan in 2013. Since then, China has achieved a dramatic improvement in its air quality. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Laura Wilcox, a professor at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading in the UK, to understand how China managed to clean up its air pollution. But Wilcox’s recent research uncovered some unintended consequences from this cleaner air for the global climate: the pollution was actually helping to cool the atmosphere and by taking it away, it may have accelerated global warming. Wilcox explains:
 What we’re seeing is a removing of cooling that’s revealing warming that’s already there. So the air pollution isn’t the cause of the warming. It’s just letting us see stuff that we’ve already done.
Listen to the interview on The Conversation Weekly podcast. You can also read an article by Laura Wilcox and her colleague Bjørn H. Samset about their recent research on The Conversation. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany, Gemma Ware and Katie Flood. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Newsclips in this episode from Voice of America, CBC, AP Archive, ABC (News) Australia, WFLA NBC Channel 8 and PBS. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.The Conversation Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dive into “The Knowledge,” where curiosity meets clarity. This playlist, in collaboration with STMDailyNews.com, is designed for viewers who value historical accuracy and insightful learning. Our short videos, ranging from 30 seconds to a minute and a half, make complex subjects easy to grasp in no time. Covering everything from historical events to contemporary processes and entertainment, “The Knowledge” bridges the past with the present. In a world where information is abundant yet often misused, our series aims to guide you through the noise, preserving vital knowledge and truths that shape our lives today. Perfect for curious minds eager to discover the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of everything around us. Subscribe and join in as we explore the facts that matter.  https://stmdailynews.com/the-knowledge/

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What makes a true Santa is inside – and comes with the red suit

Research on 849 professional Santas reveals three types: prototypical, semi-prototypical, and nonprototypical. Discover how diverse Santas navigate stereotypes and why many see the red suit as a calling, not just a job.

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7 days ago

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November 29, 2025

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What makes a true Santa is inside
Members of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas meet at Pink’s restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm before the holiday rush in 2009. Business Wire via AP

What makes a true Santa is inside – and comes with the red suit

Christina Hymer, University of Tennessee When you picture Santa Claus, a white, bearded, overweight and jolly man who dashes around delivering gifts to children during the Christmas season probably comes to mind. Yet, not everyone who dons the red suit fits this stereotype. That’s what Bethany Cockburn, Borbala Csillag and I learned when we teamed up to study professional Santas. For our study, we looked into how these professional Santas were able to “be” Santa, even if they didn’t fully fit the image. As we explained in a forthcoming article in the Academy of Management Journal, many who do this work don’t see it as just a job – it’s a calling. For some professional Santas, it’s especially important that they look and feel like Santa to experience that sense of purpose in their work. We surveyed 849 professional Santas who live across the U.S. and interviewed 53 of them, collecting data between 2018 and 2021. We identified three types of professional Santas: prototypical (64%), semi-prototypical (23%) and nonprototypical (13%). Prototypical Santas look the part. They are white and overweight, have real beards and express confidence that they are the right fit. Semi-prototypical Santas looked the part, too, but felt like they weren’t quite suitable for a range of reasons. They might be introverted or use a fake beard. Nonprototypical Santas had characteristics at odds with the stereotype. They might be nonwhite, female or gay, or have a physical disability.
Man dressed as Santa holds a dog on his lap.
Many Santas see their work, whether paid or volunteer, as a calling. Photo by Gwyn Sussman
Whereas prototypical Santas could easily slide into the Santa role, the process was more complex for the others. Semi-prototypical Santas did things like come up with stories they’d tell themselves or share with children to explain away their fake beards. Nonprototypical Santas had values aligned with the Santa image, such as being peaceful, loving and kind. But they still made a big effort to look like what people expect when they visit a Santa. “Should it be a difference if you’re a Jewish Santa Claus or a Catholic Santa Claus?” asked an atheist professional Santa we called “Santa Aquila.” “No. You’re Santa Claus. What do you do? You’re not even supposed to preach anything.” Another Santa whom we called “Santa Lynx” hid that she was female in part by flattening her chest.

Why it matters

While anyone can take a turn being their neighborhood potluck’s Santa, the one you meet at the mall probably attended some combination of Santa schools, webinars and training. For instance, the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School was founded in 1937 and conducts an annual Santa training each year. National networks also exist, such as the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, which says it has 1,000 members, – and the IBRBS, formerly known as the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, offering meetups and professional support.
A man dressed as Santa in a gray beard smiles festively.
Actor B.J. Averell, dressed as Santa Claus, attends a toy drive for struggling Bay Area families in Burlingame, Calif., in December 2024. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
There are also local organizations, such as the Lone Star Santas network in Texas. Although most professional Santas are paid for their work, many do this voluntarily. It’s not uncommon for there to be some sort of expectation around who should have a particular occupation. Pilots tend to be male, most schoolteachers are female, and salespeople are often seen as extroverted. But that doesn’t mean that women can’t be pilots, men can’t be teachers or that introverts can’t work in sales.

What’s next

I’m now looking at how broader institutional environments, current events and social movements can shape how people experience their callings and find meaning at work. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.The Conversation Christina Hymer, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, University of Tennessee This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dive into “The Knowledge,” where curiosity meets clarity. This playlist, in collaboration with STMDailyNews.com, is designed for viewers who value historical accuracy and insightful learning. Our short videos, ranging from 30 seconds to a minute and a half, make complex subjects easy to grasp in no time. Covering everything from historical events to contemporary processes and entertainment, “The Knowledge” bridges the past with the present. In a world where information is abundant yet often misused, our series aims to guide you through the noise, preserving vital knowledge and truths that shape our lives today. Perfect for curious minds eager to discover the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of everything around us. Subscribe and join in as we explore the facts that matter.  https://stmdailynews.com/the-knowledge/

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