Jason Otero is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Newburgh Creates, a makerspace in downtown Newburgh built on a single conviction: every young person deserves access to creative and technical education, regardless of cost. Under his leadership, Newburgh Creates has become the anchor venue for OpenHub's STEAM summer camps and after-school programs, providing a newly renovated, purpose-built space where children explore robotics, 3D printing, electronics, coding, and design thinking across four floors of hands-on learning.
Jason is the lead coach for OpenHub's STEAM youth programs and the driving force behind Newburgh's competitive robotics teams — guiding students through the First Lego League and First Tech Challenge competitions, where young people design, build, and program robots to compete at regional and national levels. His approach to teaching is kinetic and contagious: he builds curiosity through doing, teaches problem-solving through failure, and brings an energy to the classroom that makes young people believe they are capable of things they haven't tried yet.
Beyond education, Jason brings 25 years of senior-level experience as a creative director, having led award-winning marketing campaigns and brand strategy initiatives for clients across industries. His fluency in design, project management, and creative direction — and his ability to align vision with execution — makes him an invaluable operational partner for a program that must be both pedagogically rigorous and publicly compelling.