Immigrant Entrepreneur: Jeremy Railton

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Jeremy Railton

Founder,

Entertainment Design Corp.

Jeremy Railton grew up on a nature park that his parents owned in what was then Rhodesia. He used to love drawing and making toys out of clay.

As a young man, he brought his artistic talents to Los Angeles for a few years, working as a set designer. Then he moved to Europe to become a painter, returning to Southern California in the late 1970s for an exhibit of his work. He was still finding himself.

Railton decided to stay in Los Angeles after his parents were killed at their nature reserve by two terrorists in 1981, one year after Rhodesia gained international recognition of its independence as Zimbabwe.

“It made me grow up,” Railton said of his parents’ death, “because I was still playing, exploring and experimenting, and in my mind I wasn’t committed to staying here until then.”

So Railton decided to go back to set design for TV, theater, movies, theme parks and resorts, and launched his company, Entertainment Design Corp. He has seen real benefits to being a business owner in the United States.

“This is the best place in the world to be creative,” he said. “I’ve been welcomed, encouraged to be bold and I was able to shoot to the front of the line.”

Railton’s projects have included designing sets for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Academy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. He’s working on multiple attractions for a resort in Singapore, including two 90-foot-tall animatronic creations that look like birds.

Railton may call the United States home today, but he also enjoys the occasional benefit of his Rhodesian origin.

He traveled to South Korea several years ago to interview for a project there, but the person interviewing him didn’t want to hire an American. So Railton explained that he was born in Africa.

“He smiled and hired me,” Railton said.