The story of Clayburn began in a small town in America’s Heartland called Lovington. He started life as a humble little infant, like any other human, except for maybe George Clooney. He grew and learned and adapted and had asthma.
After infancy, Clayburn went on to experience childhood.
The Early Years
Along with his little sister, Clayburn was raised for the country life. He learned to ride a horse at a very young age and his childhood chores consisted of feeding rabbits and chickens on a daily basis. It was a lot of work for a little kid, particularly one as lazy as Clayburn. But child labor laws being what they are, he had little choice in the matter. On the positive side, he would occasionally make a few bucks selling farm-fresh chicken eggs to friends of the family.
At around the age of eight, Clayburn started learning to use a computer. At the time the personal computer was relatively new on the scene. His father had been taking Computer-Assisted Drafting classes at the New Mexico Junior College. Because of this, he brought a computer into the home and showed his young son how to use it. This was a major turning point in Clayburn’s life. The computer was how this little kid wanted to spend the rest of his life, and he began learning about the Internet and how to create webpages, eventually making his own GeoCities site.
While Clayburn still to this day looks quite dashing on a horse, the country life was not for him. He appealed to his parents to let him give up on the rodeos and livestock to pursue more scholarly goals. They relented, and Clayburn took a far less active role in the pastoral goings-on that surrounded his childhood. This freed him up to spend more time on the computer, his life’s greatest passion.
His sister, MiShae, continued with it all enthusiastically, going on to win major awards on the junior rodeo circuits of the American Southwest.
Learnin’ and Whatnot
Clayburn excelled in school, making straight A’s up until junior high when the incessant busywork finally made him question the validity of the entire education system. As a lazy act of rebellion, Clayburn started cutting class and stopped doing homework. He instead devoted himself to extracurricular activities. He participated in Mock Trial for three years, assuming the role of Team Leader in his senior year of high school. His mother always thought he’d make a good lawyer. Perhaps she realized her son had a knack for arguing and bending the truth. Or maybe she just wanted free legal advice.
Clayburn also played a baritone and bass trumpet in the award-winning LHS Big Blue Band. His skill with computers and programming made him the natural choice for the school’s webmaster, and he worked on a team to create a military-based AI for the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge. Throughout high school, Clayburn was active in Key Club as a means of giving back to the community. He served as Sophomore Representative and later as President.
Because of his rebellious nature and excessive skipping of classes, Clayburn was eventually expelled. This occurred a month before he would have graduated. He received his diploma on time, however, by taking a few tests to earn the remaining credits necessary. Now with a diploma in hand, he was ready to set out to build his future. That journey led him to Santa Fe where he attended a very silly film school. He put up with the artsy absurdity for a year before returning back home.
The Career Ladder
Having given up on college, he used his knowledge of computers to land a career in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and purchased a home for himself and his things.
Eventually the small town life proved to be too lackluster for Clayburn’s liking. He decided to take drastic measures and leave for a big city. He ended up in New York City, by way of Florence, Italy, attending New York University. There he studied psychology with a minor in computer science. In New York, Clayburn was able to apply his computery talents to enterprise-level business. He freelanced as a web developer and digital marketing consultant to help cover the exorbitant cost of NYU.
After college, he started full-time in the agency world, specializing in search engine optimization (SEO). Clayburn has worked on many well-known brands such as Pfizer, Axe, Revlon and Sony Music. He’s spoken at many industry conferences and often writes about digital marketing on his own blog and as a contributor on others’. You can read more about his professional accomplishments here. In 2016, he was hired by Horizon Media, the world’s largest privately held media agency, to create and manage their SEO department. He grew that department to 12 employees and over $2 million in revenue annual revenue over three years. Then in 2019 he left Horizon Media to focus entirely on his own digital marketing company, called Clayburn.Digital.
Family Life
While in New York City, Clayburn met Grace Pan who he went on to marry. They held ceremonies in Clayburn’s hometown of Lovington as well as New York City.
After the birth of their first child, Carnegie Tamago Griffin, the two decided to move to Lovington. The couple welcomed another child, Astrid Rini Griffin, in 2022.
While raising the kids is now Clayburn’s top priority, he still runs his digital marketing business which also offers much-needed IT services to the local rural area. He tries to find some time for his favorite hobbies too, such as board games, movies and Legos. If you want to know more about Clayburn, you can easily ask him.