Who is Stephen Hillenburg? See Net-worth, Quote, Awards, Fact, Wiki

Stephen Hillenburg Wiki Biography

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg, was born on 21 August 1961, in Lawton, Oklahoma, USA. Stephen is both a film director and producer, and also a famous marine biologist. Stephen is perhaps best known for creating the Nickelodeon animated series “SpongeBob Square Pants”.

So how rich is Stephen Hillenburg? Sources have estimated that Stephen’s net worth is $90 million, a sum which increases steadily with incomes from directorial film projects and voice acting, as well as his work as a marine biologist.

Stephen Hillenburg Net Worth $90 Million

Stephen Hillenburg spent his childhood in Anaheim, California. His father Kelly worked for aerospace companies – including on the Apollo project – and his mother, Nancy was a teacher of the visually impaired. In 1984, Stephen graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in marine resource planning and interpretation, and subsequently became a teacher of marine biology at the Ocean Institute in California. Stephen Hillenburg also graduated in animation from California Institute of the Arts, after which Stephen’s  net worth started increasing because of his work in the film industry. Stephen started working as a co-writer and co-producer of the famous television series “Rocko`s Modern Life” along with its creator Joel Murray.

His successful beginning with “Rocko`s Modern Life” led Stephen Hillenburg to his own project, creating the animated television series “SpongeBob SquarePants”. It started running in 1999 and continues to be aired until today on the Nickelodeon Channel. This children`s comedy series is voiced by Tom Kenny, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence and many others, and has been acknowledged as the highest rated show ever aired on Nickelodeon, and has also been widely distributed on MTV Networks International. The “SpongeBob SquarePants” series has earned Stephen six Annie Awards, as well as one Emmy Award.

“SpongeBob SquarePants” was produced by United Plankton Pictures, a production company founded in 1998 by Stephen Hillenburg. Stephen also voiced the character of Potty the Parrot. Hillenburg was a writer, an executive producer, a showrunner and a storyboard director of “SpongeBob SquarePants”. Following the cultural and financial success of this series, Hillenburg decided to create a movie, a film adaptation of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”, which considerably enlarged Stephen Hillenburg’s net worth and rewarded him with an Annie Award for Directing in a Feature Position.

There are no doubts “SpongeBob SquarePants” series and movie has been the greatest source of the revenues that came to Stephen Hillenburg’s net worth. However, the famous film producer has contributed to the production and distribution of other movies, too. Stephen directed and composed the animated short film “The Green Beret” released in 1991, and added further incomes to his net worth when he wrote “Mother Goose and Grimm” (1991) and directed “Wormholes” (1992), which gained Stephen an award for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Hillenburg is also a story writer and executive producer of “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water”, an animated movie based on the television series, which is going to be released in 2015.

As regards Stephen Hillenburg`s personal life, the celebrity has been married to Karen Hillenburg, who is a chef and also teaches at a cooking school, since 1994. In 1998, the Hillenburgs welcomed a son and named him Clay. Currently, the family lives in San Marino, Southern California. Stephen has many hobbies, including scuba diving, snorkeling and surfing. The famous film director loves painting surreal seascapes, and he even claims these paintings are kind of personal.