Meet Brett
MR. BRETT
CEO
Brett serves as the CEO of both Little Sunshine’s Playhouse & Preschool and Playhouse Development, LLC., guiding both the operational and the real estate development components of LSP.
He has a passion for finding immediate and strategic solutions and guiding people to succeed. His vision is to continue to cultivate and support a thriving leadership and workplace environment that is vital to school health and performance. Having an elementary school principal in the family has given him unique insight on education and placing children in their very best position to thrive. That background is what attracted Brett to Little Sunshine’s Playhouse, where its mission is to do just that.
He graduated from Dodge High School in Nebraska, and obtained his B.S. in Mathematics from Creighton University in 1996. In 1999 he earned his Juris Doctor degree, also from Creighton University.
His career in law begin at Shughart Thomson & Kilroy (now Polsinelli) in Kansas City where he worked for 5 years in commercial litigation. In 2004, he and his family moved to his spouse’s hometown of Springfield, Missouri to work for Baird Lightner Millsap, PC, the last 13 of which as a partner. In his 15 years in private practice in Springfield, Brett evolved his practice into a thriving transactional consulting business, where he represented numerous local, regional and national clients on various business and real estate issues, including a close working relationship with Little Sunshine’s Playhouse. Brett has been actively involved in various activities over his professional years, including 7 years on the Missouri Bar Board of Governors and the same amount of time on the board of the Springfield Workshop (now SWI Industrial Solutions), where he served as Board Chairman for 2 years. He has been honored as one of the Best Lawyers in America since 2012, a Missouri Super Lawyer since 2012 and is AV Preeminent Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
Brett is married to Kristen, an attorney who works as a permanent law clerk for the Honorable M. Douglas Harpool of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. They have three children—Quinn, Kennedi and Ellie, who keep very busy with school, athletic and other activities. Brett and Kristen value school first and activities second but most of all they value quality time with the entire family. Much of that family time in the summers is happily spent at Table Rock Lake, but outside of that and periodic vacations, family dinners, game nights and local hikes are a constant source of joy.
