Building Creative Bridges: Torrey Tayenaka on Community, Collaboration, and the Future of Sparkhouse

For Torrey Tayenaka, the most energizing part of leadership right now is the way community, mentorship, and agency growth all feed into each other. While continuing to scale Sparkhouse, Tayenaka is also investing time in mentoring students, collaborating with fellow agencies, and serving on the board of American Advertising Federation of Orange County. From helping host industry awards to opening his studio for creative meetups, he sees these efforts as more than networking—they’re about building a stronger ecosystem where creatives, entrepreneurs, and marketers can connect, share ideas, and elevate the entire Orange County community.

Torrey, you’re currently balancing leadership, community involvement, and agency growth — what’s been most energizing for you lately, and how do these different roles complement each other?
What’s been most energizing lately is how interconnected everything has become. Running Sparkhouse takes a lot of focus, but being involved in the broader creative community constantly brings new perspective and energy back into the agency.

I currently serve on the board of the American Advertising Federation of Orange County, which is a local community that brings together people across advertising and marketing. I also spend time mentoring at local film schools, both at the college level and with high school programs, helping students understand what the industry actually looks like once they graduate.

Another thing I really enjoy is participating in mastermind-style brainstorming groups with other creative and video agencies. On the surface people might see us as competitors, but those conversations are incredibly valuable. We share ideas, talk about challenges, and learn from each other’s experiences.

All of those roles feed back into how I lead Sparkhouse. Being connected to students, peers, and the broader creative community keeps us learning, evolving, and staying ahead of where the industry is going.

You’re on the board of the American Advertising Federation of Orange County and helping host an upcoming awards show — why is supporting the local advertising community important to you, and what excites you most about this event?
I’ve always believed that creative communities grow stronger when people actively contribute to them. Orange County has an incredible amount of talent across advertising, design, video production, and marketing, but historically a lot of that work has flown under the radar compared to places like LA.

Being part of the American Advertising Federation board is an opportunity to help spotlight that talent and create spaces where people can connect, collaborate, and celebrate great work.

The awards show is exciting because it brings together so many different parts of the industry in one room. Agencies, freelancers, brands, students, and creatives all come together to recognize the work that pushes our industry forward. Those moments of recognition and connection are what help a creative community grow.

You’re also hosting a Sparkhouse-specific industry meetup at your studio later this month — what inspired you to create this gathering, and what do you hope attendees walk away with?
A lot of the best opportunities in my career have come from conversations rather than formal networking. Someone introduces you to someone else, an idea gets shared, and suddenly a new collaboration or project starts.

The meetup was inspired by that idea. We wanted to open up our studio and create a space where creative professionals, founders, marketers, and entrepreneurs could connect in a relaxed environment without the pressure of a traditional networking event.

One thing that’s important to us is bringing in younger talent as well. We’re inviting students and recent graduates who are looking to meet people in the industry and start building those relationships early in their careers.

We’ll also have experienced industry leaders attending, not just from video production but from different areas of marketing and advertising. That mix of perspectives tends to create really interesting conversations.

At the same time, we try to keep it casual and fun. It’s not just industry professionals attending. Friends, family, and even a few of my old high school teachers will be there. The goal is to create a welcoming environment where people can genuinely connect.

How do events like these reflect the culture and values you’re building at Sparkhouse?
At Sparkhouse, we’ve always tried to build a culture that’s collaborative rather than competitive. The creative industry works best when people share ideas, help each other grow, and push each other to do better work.

We regularly collaborate with other video production companies in the area. At a surface level people might call them competitors, but in reality working together has allowed us to expand into new capabilities and learn from different teams with different expertise.

These events also reflect how we approach relationships with our clients. We don’t see our work as purely transactional. We work closely with our clients throughout the creative process, and many of them genuinely become friends along the way. Some of those clients will actually be attending the event as well.

Opening up our space and bringing different people together feels like a natural extension of that culture.

Looking ahead, how do you see your role in shaping creative and entrepreneurial communities continuing to evolve this year?
I think one of the biggest opportunities right now is helping bring different creative and entrepreneurial communities together. There are incredibly talented creatives, marketers, founders, and technologists in Orange County, but they don’t always cross paths.

One of the things I’m focused on this year is creating more environments where those worlds can intersect. That could be events, collaborations, educational conversations, or simply opening up our space to bring people together.

If Sparkhouse can continue to serve as a hub where those connections happen, then we’re contributing to building a stronger creative ecosystem locally while continuing to grow the agency at the same time.