Kai Patterson: Life Prepared Me For The Project Child Support Television Series

 Project Child Support 

Raised as a child of a single mother, I pursued becoming a jet pilot, and astronaut, until a 25 degree, right apex curvature was discovered in my spine. The subtle spinal curvature had gone unnoticed throughout my life, including through three (3) military physicals, until my final flight training physical while I was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.  From that point forward, I thought that I was going to be an aerospace engineer who retired at  NASA.  After a technology career, in honor of my mother’s death, I created a technology and servicing company to assist parents with child support dilemmas.   Little did I know what the universe had planed for me.

The Universe’s Mission And Preparation To Undertake The Initiative

Kai Patterson & His Mother    

Oprah Winfrey recently said, “GOD can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself;” (Oprah's Interview), and there could never be truer circumstances than Project Child Support and me. Never receiving child support as a child cultivated me to have an empathy gap for single parents owed arrears.  My mother stayed in Newark, NJ in low-income housing and took the bus for years so she could develop her credit, because she felt that she couldn’t rely on the child support from my father. My paternal grandparents supplemented as much as they could to try and bridge the financial gap.  Not having my biological father in my life, but having a great paternal grandfather enabled me to see what it means to be a great father, even though I have no children of my own.  Attending college also enabled me to see African American students brought to campus by both of their parents, witnessing the love by fathers, unlike my experience with my father.  Understanding that I grew up in a situation that wasn’t normal in my era (before the epidemic of single parenting) undoubtedly provided the motivation and drive to help parents with child support issues. This is why I admire Oprah Winfrey's wisdom. 

Kai Patterson's Childhood Apartment Complex    

Growing up as a child of a single parent enabled me to understand how important my mother’s image was to her, and how important it is to depict the parents in the most positive light possible, especially custodial parents who must continue raising their children after their episode airs.  Unlike many reality series that depict adults in the most demeaning manner possible to gain notoriety, I refused to capitulate to that media thirst, which enabled me to redefine our series as a “Docu-Drama,” instead of a reality series.  This turned out to be a great decision when I attempted to acquire the insurance policies for the series, which include a general liability, production liability, and errors & omissions insurances, in addition to the production company having to acquire production liability, and production completion bond insurances.  People fighting, flipping each other over tables, and the resulting lawsuits have made insurance companies afraid to insure reality series productions.  Without errors & omission insurance, networks will not allow your show to air on stations.  Many reality shows and stars have pissed in the well for independent producers trying to launch reality series.

Acquiring The Discipline, Skills And Contacts

  Kai Patterson's AT&T Endorsement   

Serving as a Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps enabled me to acquire the discipline and tenacity to continue pursing the goal of launching the series, even with all of the adversities I encountered.  After my honorable discharge from the United State Marine Corps and working on the development team for GPS at ITT DCD/Avionics, I became a computer consultant at AT&T, where I worked as a 1099.  I became familiar with being paid as an independent contractor, which is how many noncustodial parents hide their income (AT&T Endorsement).  Studying technology enabled me to undertake creating a system to help find noncustodial parents on the run, which led to me to create Bounty Alert, Project Child Support and the television series.  Prior to this venture, I created technology to assist in the recovery of missing children with a venture I initially called Youth Alert, then AMBER Alert Safety, and ultimately AMBER Ready.  The AMBER Ready venture enabled me to meet the production and distribution company that provided me with my television deal (Television Deal).  The introduction came from a contact at one of the investment banks that funded my AMBER Ready deal.  They produced the AMBER Ready Commercial after two other production companies produced terrible commercials.  The two terrible commercials by two other production companies enabled me to realize that everyone with a video camera can’t produce a quality production.

Kai Patterson's ABC News Interview    

My first television interview was conducted by NBC, when I invented virtual tours in a full multiple listing system and sold it to Prudential Real Estate in 1995 (NBC Interview), while waiting for the NFL to approve the game analysis system I created for them. My AMBER Ready project also prepared me for television in a way that I could never imagine, when I went on tour and began speaking on television networks about the initiative.  When it was called Youth Alert in 2003, I was a novice in front of the camera (WB11 Interview). Between 2004 and 2006, I linked-up with a group that hosted AMBER Alert events on weekends throughout the country, which were covered by local news stations and required that I give interviews on many occasions.  By 2009, when FOX News in Boston profiled me on their morning show, it was a more polished interview and I was comfortable being on camera.  It felt natural, even though it was the first time I was filmed in a huge television studio (FOX Interview).  After I left AMBER Ready and started the Custodial Support Foundation as a nonprofit, I obtained a television series talk show deal from Cablevision, located in New Jersey.  Amateur producers produced the show, but the ten  (10) episodes enabled me to determine the topics, write the show, acquire the guest and host it.  The show was called the Custodial Support Forum, and was the first dedicated talk show series to discuss solutions to child support issues for both custodial and noncustodial parents (Custodial Support Forum).         

How Professional Athletes And Celebrities Don’t Pay Child Support

Stephen A Jordan (A.K.A Stevie J)    

Growing up with a father who was an entertainer, produced shows in Europe, and was paid as an independent contractor, enabled me to understand how celebrities make themselves “un-garnishable” by the Office of Child Support Enforcement.  Many actors, singers, dancers and producers form their own companies, and contract out their services to avoid being garnished, since it’s almost impossible to garnish contractor payments.  Notice that I used the phrase “almost impossible to garnish,” because the series will divulge the steps custodial parents need to take to enforce child support when noncustodial parents are being paid as independent contractors.  Since sports athletes receive medical benefits and are treated as employees of their teams under the IRS Rule 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform, they should be easily garnished. So, how do so many end up owing child support?  Acquiring the Steven A. Jordan (A.K.A. Stevie J) case enabled me to prove that I could do what is necessary to locate the assets of high profile celebrities and bring them to justice if they refused to pay (Stevie J’s Federal Guilty Plea).

NFL's Purchase Of Game Prep

Creating Game Prep for the NFL to manage the Player Disciplines for Gene Washington, who was the former Director of Football Development and Paul Tagliabue, who was the former Commissioner, enabled me to immediately recognize how NFL Players like Terrell Owens accumulated his arrears when I obtained the case from one of the custodial parent of his child.  It took April 16, 1993 from the day I wrote my first line of code to April 16, 1996 to receive the letter from the NFL that approved my contract to provide Game Prep as an NFL System (NFL Purchase), which was several years before Microsoft paid the NFL $400,000 to provide the system I was paid by the NFL to provide (Microsoft Deal).  Ironically, when I obtained the Terrell Owens cases, I was able immediately recognize how it took place.  The services that I provided, enable me the custodial parent to collect on this account.  The series will teach viewers the tricks and schemes used by many professional athletes to not pay child support, even if they are paid as employees whose salaries should be garnished, but are not.

Learning How To Raise Capital Through Prior Ventures

Many television series are produced with the intent of taking it to a network, and having the network fund the series, which enables them to own it, cast it, control what’s shown, cancel it, replace anyone associated with the series, and pay a small fraction of the revenue generated by the series.  After experiencing adversities were some people were not sincere throughout my life, and in many business ventures, putting this series in the hands of someone who may not have an appreciation for my pigmentation is too risky.  Furthermore, since we provide legal services for parents, we need to dictate what can be shown to ensure that we maintain attorney/client privileges with our clients.  Having raised over $18 million for the AMBER Ready project, where news stories covered $14 million ($12 Million and 2 Million), I learned the most important factor in raising money is obtaining a contract that commits to the earnings, and having costs that are less than the earnings to generate profits.    

Sony PXW-Z100 4K XDCAM Camera

Unlike most productions that start out with a treatment, a pilot, a production deal, and then a distribution deal to have the show air on a network, I acquired the production and distribution deal before ever producing a frame of footage was produced.  I was able to do this, because the production company that produced the AMBER Ready commercial was also an independent distribution company.  That enabled me to enter into a production and distribution deal all rolled into one deal.  Most productions consist of separate production and distribution companies where neither will guarantee the work of the other, thus requiring a trailer, sizzle real or pilot to be produced.  That requires investment capital to be provided, which is risky before a distribution deal is acquired.  Television networks and production studios do not have to produce pilots for the series they produce, fund, own and air, because they have the reputation of producing quality shows.  A production and distribution company with a reputation of producing quality shows like studios and networks can have media buyers commit the advertisers just like television networks and major studios.  Since “once upon a time” our production and distribution company produced shows for networks, they developed the reputation to obtain a distribution deal without a single frame of footage.  The deal requires the series be filmed in 4K, to also ensure the video quality is excellent.

Raising The Capital To Produce An Independent Series

Game Prep Invented By Kai Patterson   

Raising the money for AMBER Ready, and my NFL venture taught me how to produce business plans, executive summary, projections, and how to write contracts. When AMBER Ready launched a back to school event on Time Square, I met several entertainment attorneys associated with music and television.  Since many music artists are acquiring television deals through 360 deals, I was able to not only contact the entertainment attorneys of the artists that we used for the Time Square event, but entertainment attorneys that we didn’t use.  Fortunately, I was able to acquire an entertainment attorney to put together an iron clad contract that enabled the Project Child Support series to be distributed as a “Time Buy” to enable the series to be independently distributed via a network as a default, with the ability of having the series licensed by a network.  My production and distribution company then acquired a deal with one of the largest independent distribution companies to distribute the series domestically and internationally.

AMBER Ready Lunch At U.S. Capitol

Before attempting to raise the funds for the series development, I acquired an invoice from the production and distribution company that guaranteed the funds for the series as each episode is released.  Rather than selling independent investors on funding the series, where they put their investment at a total risk of me earning back their funds, I decided to use a commercial bank to fund development of the series and use their investment as collateral.  The collateral is never be touched while generating interest for the investor.  I acquired a series of insurance policies to protect the deal, collateral provider and bank should anything go wrong. Since the production and distribution company was bondable, they acquired a bond for the production budget that ensured the series is produced, and distributed to the networks via the domestic and international independent distribution company.  I obtained the error & omission insurance policy to meet the requirements of each network.  I also acquired a general liability policy for the entire amount of the loan, including the costs the fees to guarantee the loan, which will be paid at the closing of the loan, instead of being paid at the repayment of the loan.  Had I not previously raised $18 million for my prior AMBER Ready project, whereby $14 million is documented in news articles, I may not have been taken seriously when I requested what I needed in each deal that’s associated with the television series to raise the funds for the series.  Once funded, I launched AMBER Ready at the U.S. Capitol Building, where I spoke before Congress. The launch enabled me to cut my teeth at making presentations to politicians after holding a press conference that morning at the National Press Club with the Assistant U.S. Attorney Of New York.

Executing All Documents At Closing To Protect All Parties

To prevent the concerns of a chicken and egg scenario that require elements of deals to be in place before other elements can be provided, all parties agreed to an escrow attorney approved by the bank to make all of the payments to the respective parties at the closing of the funding.  The terms of the agreements required the guarantors, bonding company and insurance companies to be paid their full premiums by the escrow attorney at the closing of the loan to ensure no policies would lapse for nonpayment over the course of the loan.  A complete budget for the series, funding, escrow fees, and closing costs was required to be approved by the production company, bank, guarantor, bonding company, and all of the insurance companies.  To ensure the production would not exceed the production budget, the production and distribution company agreed to cap their costs and incur any losses associated with any cost overruns in their agreement.  The bonding company also required a five percent (5%) budget excess cushion be placed in their escrow account, which will be returned at the completion and distribution of the seasons being funded and produced.

Conclusion

Kai Patterson & His Father   

I had a biological father who initially denied paternity, and used his entertainment career’s independent contractor payment method to prevent paying child support.  When I was a child and in college, never in an million years, would I have ever believed that I would be providing services to assist children who were owed child support like me. Having been a technical consultant, I coincidently learned how my father’s payment method works.  Subsequently forming a company that created the technology for the NFL’s discipline’s system that required me to learn how their payroll system worked to implement player fines, I obtained inside knowledge to recognize how some professional atheletes avoid child support garnishments.  After rasining over $18 million in my previous company that created technology to find missing children, I subsequently formed Project Child Support where I get the Terrell Owens’ case to provide the investigative services for the mother of his child. The case led to a court order being issued in my client's favor.  Finally, I obtained the nation’s largest child support felony evasion case of the music producer Stevie J, where I used what I learned from being an independent contractor to find his revenue sources. The U.S. Government prosecuted him, where he plead guilty, and is required to pay $1.3 million in unpaid child support to our client.

Kai Patterson's Secret Mentor

The chances of one individual coincidently taking my career path, forming this company, obtaining the cases that I obtained, and continue to obtain new high profile cases are less than winning the lottery.  This is why I have so much confidence in the Project Child Support Television Series, and truly believe Oprah’s statement to "let the universe guide you" requires persistence once you understand your life's mission.  In that same Oprah Winfrey interview that I watched, she said “you can’t fight problems head on; you have to transcend it.”  That is what Project Child Support, and it’s television series will do.  She also talked about “brining out the best in people,” which is what I’ve seen first hand.  The countless people who’ve gotten behind this initiative to enable it to come to fruition can’t be measured.

(c) Copyright 2018 by Project Child Support

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PARENTS MAY CONTACT

Project Child Support at (855) 851-HELP or (855) 851-4357

Website: ProjectChildSupport.com