Bridger Hart
Also pictured above
In 2013, eighth grader Bridger Hart shared with our readers his early love of photography, cinematography and Wes Anderson. Already experimenting with drawing, design and filmmaking, the Hermosa Valley School student looked ahead to a future where his creative passions could become more than a hobby.
Fast-forward more than a decade, and Bridger has done just that. After attending Mira Costa High School, he chose to forgo college in favor of a less conventional path.
“I can absorb information much faster by watching lectures online at 2x speed than I ever could in a traditional classroom, and I knew this was the right path for me,” he says. “I was also eager to jump into the film industry, because I value hands-on experience above all else. To me, going to college felt like it would delay getting closer to my goals.”
As Bridger set out to understand the business side of film, he found himself drawn into entrepreneurship. “I had always thought of myself as a filmmaker, but during that period I realized I love inventing in the same way our dad does,” he says, referring to his father’s career as a candy inventor.
Dyslexic and a visual thinker, Bridger once assumed the text-heavy nature of coding would be his “worst nightmare.” But with a high-impact goal in mind, he pushed through that fear, learned the fundamentals and went on to build complex algorithms. At the same time he studied how creative fields such as fashion, interior design and art are deeply intertwined with e-commerce.
“There are tens of millions of shopping sites online, and almost all of them rely on search bars and basic filters for price, category or color,” he says. “Without those tools, finding what you need would feel impossible.”
Sensing an opportunity to improve the discovery experience, Bridger partnered with his brother, Carson, to create Infinite Color Search through their shared company, Hoppn Labs.
“Our mission is to bring advanced color search to the shopping websites people use every day, transforming how the world discovers products by color,” Bridger explains. “Using a color wheel, you can pinpoint any specific color and instantly find the closest match. Our patented system understands color five-dimensionally—sampling hue, saturation, lightness, weight and dispersion within a single product. While most color filters offer around 10 basic options, Infinite Color Search unlocks quadrillions of unique color combinations—an information-retrieval leap comparable to ChatGPT.”
With roots in Hermosa Beach, many of the brothers’ earliest partners are based in the South Bay, including familiar local brands such as Spyder Surfboards, Bo Bridges Gallery, Dacha Interiors and Body Glove.
“Spyder Surf has long been a community staple, but not everyone realizes their website features products you can’t always find in person,” says Bridger. “Adding Infinite Color Search gave them a unique, marketable feature that helps draw customers in.”
Most recently, the brothers were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2026. “It marked a real inflection point for us,” Bridger says. “After years of building behind the scenes, our work was suddenly being recognized on a global stage.”
Kami Miner
When 17-year-old Redondo Union High School volleyball player Kami Miner was photographed for our April issue cover in early 2020, neither she nor anyone at Southbay could have imagined how dramatically the world would change just weeks later. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close indefinitely, many South Bay teens—including Kami—lost access to in-person learning, activities and once-in-a-lifetime milestones for months to come.
Yet even then, Kami expressed a remarkably hopeful outlook on the future. “I think my generation is capable of changing the world for the better by approaching challenges with fearlessness and not being afraid to push the limits of what’s possible,” she shared in her profile at the time.
Life since her days as a standout teen athlete—competing for both Redondo Union and the U.S. Girls Youth National Volleyball Team—has proven that belief well founded. After studying economics and graduating from Stanford University, Kami immediately began training with the U.S. Women’s National Team in Anaheim, spending the summer preparing for international competition. With her team, she captured a gold medal at the 2025 NORCECA Final Six tournament in Mexico.
In late September, Kami moved nearly 6,000 miles from her hometown of Redondo Beach to Monza, Italy, where she now plays professional volleyball for Numia Vero Volley Milano, one of the top teams in the world. Just weeks later, she helped her team secure a victory at the 2025 Supercoppa Fineco in Trieste, Italy, defeating the world’s top-ranked team.
“Playing professional volleyball in Italy has been a goal of mine since I began playing the sport more than 10 years ago,” Kami says. “Having the opportunity to compete at the highest level in the world while being immersed in a new culture has been incredible.”
Jesse Padveen
“When I see something that leaves me speechless or impossible to put into words, I naturally end up behind the lens—capturing what I find incredible and expressing it that way,” shared 14-year-old Jesse Padveen in 2015, then a freshman at Mira Costa High School.
A skilled photographer, Jesse turned his passion into a business, producing high-gloss, lightweight metal photo prints of his nature-driven images. After high school, he headed to Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University).
“It turns out the eponymous Ryerson was a real bad guy, so they changed the name in my second year,” he explains. “I’m not even sure whether my diploma says Ryerson or Toronto Met, since I skipped my convocation to work on an Apple movie.”
Since then, the budding filmmaker has spent two years working on sets across Winnipeg, Toronto, and New York before returning to Los Angeles to work at a Hollywood literary agency. “It’s been fun soaking in the business side of things, even during these difficult times for the industry,” he says.
A writer, director and producer, Jesse saw his short film The Sphinx premiere at Slamdance, an Oscar-qualifying film festival, in 2025. The film went on to win the Audience Award at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, as well as Best Director at the 2025 National Film Festival for Talented Youth.
“My personal life has taken a bit of a back seat to filmmaking,” Jesse admits. “I even moved back in with good ol’ Mom and Dad to save money for my next projects: another short film and a feature. Unless any readers out there are looking to invest in movies. Maybe a dentist? I hear dentists funded the Coen brothers’ first few films. If you clean teeth or love movies, please shoot me a line!”
Chloe Kim
When we featured 14-year-old Torrance resident Chloe Kim in 2015, the young athlete was already being hailed as the next superstar of snowboarding—despite being too young to compete at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. That same year at the X Games in Aspen, she made history as the youngest competitor ever to win gold in the Snowboard SuperPipe, stunning fans and upsetting legend Kelly Clark.
The 2018 Winter Olympics firmly cemented Chloe’s superstar status. At just 17, she became the youngest woman to win an Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, capturing first place in the women’s halfpipe. Four years later in Beijing, she made history again as the first woman to win two Olympic gold medals in the event. Today she is an eight-time X Games gold medalist and the first woman to earn two gold medals in snowboarding at the Winter Youth Olympic Games.
Having already secured her spot on Team USA after winning the 2025 World Championship, the two-time Olympic champion is now preparing for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics this February, where she will aim for a historic third consecutive gold medal in the snowboard halfpipe. Her fans here in the South Bay will be cheering her on.
