Nathan Gebhard

Nathan Gebhard is driven by a love of design and creativity in everything he does. For a while, he bottled up that love and left it behind, succumbing to a message he was hit with over and over again--one that told him being an artist would leave him homeless and penniless. He was on his way to becoming a successful management consultant by the time he realized this path wasn’t for him. So he jumped in an old RV with two of his friends, and drove over 17,000 miles around the country to ask questions of people who broke out from under familial and societal expectations to build lives true to their own interests and values. What started as a single road trip has become a company--Roadtrip Nation--and a movement that reaches over 60 million people each year as it shares the stories of people who have created livelihoods around their interests. Nathan is co-founder, creative director, and head of product at Roadtrip Nation, where he is in charge of brand strategy and oversees the teams creating Roadtrip Nation’s long-running television series, innovative career exploration resources, curricula, and books. Under his creative direction, Roadtrip Nation was awarded the 2014 Return on Education Innovation Award for Student Support; has been featured on NBC’s Today Show and in the pages of USA Today, Fast Company, and Forbes magazine; and has presented its unique approach to education and career exploration at NBC’s Education Nation Summit, the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Conference, the UN Social Innovation Summit, and beyond. In high school Nathan received the coveted “Excellence in Woodshop” award and went on to Orange Coast College before graduating from Pepperdine University.