Dean Houdeshell

Dean Houdeshell is the founder of Project HORIZON and CEO of Innovative Coaching Strategies. He spent 30 years as an engineer building plants, teams, and systems — and over 20 years as a professional balloon artist, where he specialized in creating moments of wonder.

That unlikely combination taught him something most leadership programs miss: structure without imagination is rigid, and imagination without structure is chaos. Today, Dean helps leaders, teams, and organizations tap into creativity, solve real problems, and build cultures where innovation isn’t accidental — it’s designed in. He coaches, facilitates, and speaks with one goal: turning good people into great leaders.

Step out of your comfort zone and into the creative zone with Dean’s hands-on, unexpected workshop approach to challenge your mental patterns, unlock breakthrough business problem-solving, and systematically engineer innovation.