Thaddeus Bennett has built his career one Lego brick at a time. It all started in 1999 when he bought his first Lego “Star Wars” set, which he still has to this day.
“I’ve collected ever since I was a little kid,” Thaddeus says. “I had my own little Lego page… and would upload pictures to a nonexistent audience. But I was always kind of preparing myself for this job, even though I never dreamed in a million years that this could be something obtainable.”
Working at the Legoland Discovery Center in Grapevine, Thaddeus is a master model builder, a job one gets only after winning the Lego building competition, Brick Factor.
“It’s three rounds of Lego building, timed with single elimination,” Thaddeus says. “Each round has a certain theme, and the contestants only have a certain amount of Lego bricks to build with.”
In his first competition, Thaddeus finished in third place out of over 100 participants. After that, Lego offered him an entry-level office job, where he took the opportunity to learn more about the company. After nine months, Thaddeus reentered the competition and won in the fall of 2019, officially becoming one of only 25 master model builders for all of Legoland and the Legoland Discovery Centers.
Thaddeus’ responsibilities include building new Lego models and maintaining current ones, including a small-scale Lego version of the DFW Metroplex that features AT&T Stadium, the Stockyards and Globe Life Field.
Thaddeus starts projects by building them out digitally using Lego software. This helps him pitch ideas as he can get a rough estimate of how many bricks he’ll need, how long it will take and what the overall cost will be.
“I can just see a piece and I can think of all the different possibilities and connections and what it can be used for,” Thaddeus says.
Some of his more recent builds include a tiger for the Chinese New Year and a mosaic of Martin Luther King Jr. Thaddeus also has some big projects in the works, including a mosaic Mona Lisa that looks like the original painting from one side and features her as a Lego woman from another side. He also plans to use Lego bricks to recreate Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting, “Girl With A Pearl Earring,” and Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.”
“I get to play with Legos as my job,” Thaddeus says. “Getting to say that is pretty cool.”