Rick Rekedal — Belmont University

Award-winning storyteller Rick Rekedal has a 30-year career in values-driven narratives across film, games, and publishing. He spent 20+ years in senior roles at DreamWorks Animation, contributing to properties including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon.

Today, he serves as Chief Creative Officer and Executive Director of the Creative Arts Collective at Belmont University, mentoring the next generation of creators.

From DreamWorks franchises to the classroom

Rekedal spent two decades inside DreamWorks Animation helping shape the studio’s biggest franchises — Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and the extended universe of spin-offs, specials, and publishing tie-ins each one generated. His portfolio sits at the intersection of animated filmmaking and interactive entertainment, bridging the two disciplines DreamWorks increasingly treated as a single storytelling pipeline rather than separate businesses.

Belmont’s Creative Arts Collective

Belmont University, based in Nashville, has long been associated with its music industry program — but the Creative Arts Collective, which Rekedal leads as Executive Director and Chief Creative Officer, casts a wider net. It threads music, film, games, and writing into a shared studio environment, giving students exposure to the cross-discipline collaboration that actually mirrors how major franchises get built today. For Christians aspiring to careers in mainstream entertainment, Rekedal’s track record — decades of work on commercial animated properties without sacrificing his convictions — is a rare kind of roadmap.