Wayne Caparas

'Wayne Caparas (born February 8, 1963) is an American performing artist, writer, and award-winning entrepreneur. Caparas is also a journalist and photojournalist, and has been involved in the creation and launch of several non-profit organizations and Christian ministries. He has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild since 1995. Most notably, the former outspoken atheist became a born-again Christian in 1998.

Early years

Wayne Keith Caparas was born to Rolando Sorné and Patricia Doucett Caparas in Boston, Massachusetts. His father is a Filipino-born career sailor in the United States Navy who became a naturalized citizen, and his mother a second-generation Bostonian of French-Canadian and Irish descent who worked primarily as a civilian employee for the US Navy. His parents have since divorced and both have remarried. For most of his father's navy career he served on the historic USS Observation Island, the first naval vessel to successfully launch a Poseidon Ballistic Missile from sea. Though Wayne spent the first 3 years of his life in Boston and New London, CT, the Navy moved the Caparas family to Cocoa Beach, Florida while the Observation Island was stationed at Cape Kennedy (NASA) from 1966-1971 at the peak of the Apollo moon-shot years. The Navy then relocated the Caparas family first to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, then New Orleans, Louisiana, and finally to Charleston, South Carolina in 1975.

Business career

Caparas is an award winning entrepreneur, business writer, and brand consultant who has concurrently developed a career as a performing artist and writer in several disciplines. Over the past decade Caparas entered the field of digital media production and internet concept innovation at the head of Caparas Media.

His business career began in the wake of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, when Caparas led two different partnership teams to develop seven Charleston, SC area health clubs under two different brands, the latter of which was LifeQuest Fitness, a brand that would go on to win 90% of the local market share while gaining international acclaim as the most innovative health clubs in America. In addition to the health clubs Caparas led a team of young entrepreneurs to expand and license the brand while developing a fitness equipment and flooring company, a newsstand magazine (Vie magazine), and a women's fitness competition (LifeQuest Triple Crown) that aired worldwide on ESPN. Caparas also licensed the brand to media giant Guthy-Renker and Olympic Gold Medal winner Bruce Jenner for use in a series of infomercials that aired nationwide. During the LifeQuest years Wayne received global recognition in numerous business publications including featured/cover stories in Entrepreneur Magazine, Japan's Pocket Company magazine, Nation's Business magazine, Club Industry magazine, and Fitness Management magazine. Caparas also served on several national faculties including the American Council on Exercise and lectured across the US for these organizations. In the late '90s Caparas sold his interests in LifeQuest to allow more time for family, writing, and spiritual pursuits while also recovering from a thyroid condition. Within ten years of his departure LifeQuest collapsed under mismanagement, and today the brand exists as a single small health club in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Acting

Caparas got his start in the film industry in 1988 in the motion picture "Quiet Victory, The Charlie Wedemeyer Story." He was originally hired as a featured extra, then was hired to recruit and wrangle all the athletes needed for the football related film, and was ultimately given minor directorial and script change responsibilities as the technical advisor for most of the on-field football scenes. Following encouragement from director Roy Campanella II and actors Michael Nouri, Peter Berg, and Dan Lauria, Caparas began studying stage performance with Michael Conyers and voice with Metropolitan Opera star June Bonner who soon had Caparas working in professional shows as a soulful baritone soloist and stage actor, most notably in the Charleston Ballet Theatre and Charleston Symphony Orchestra collaboration "Charleston's Broadway." After a three year hiatus where Caparas focused on family matters and the development of his business interests, Caparas landed principal roles in the films "Mother of the River," "Silent Steel," and "Other Voices Other Rooms," the latter of which earned Caparas membership into the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1994. Over the next six years Caparas worked as a principal actor in nearly a dozen motion pictures (see Caparas's detailed filmography and other Film/TV credits at the Internet Movie Database). Also during the mid-'90s, Caparas began writing, directing, and performing in major Passion Plays, Musicals, and other stage shorts for large church audiences in Charleston, SC.

Music

Caparas released "Gospel Project," his first CD of all original material in 2008 to strong reviews among the independent Christian Contemporary Music scene. He had previously contributed songs and lead vocals to several independent recordings, including Saxophonist Robert P. Williams' "Change My Heart" (1999), which contains three of Caparas's original songs and lead vocals on several tracks. As a vocal soloist Wayne has performed in a variety of settings, from small clubs to arenas as large as the North Charleston Coliseum (for the 1995 Christian Coalition national conference), but the majority of his performance time since 1994 has been as a praise & worship vocalist and soloist for Christian concerts and special events.

Journalism

Caparas has gained wide publication as a health & nutrition journalist and also as a business journalist with more than 30 published works to his credit. For most of these articles he also produced all original photography. He first gained publication in several trade journals during the mid-90s, and by the late 90s he was a Co-Publisher and Contributing editor to the newsstand magazine Vie (a women's fitness magazine), which led to an instrumental role in the development of Oxygen Magazine as a Contributing editor, featured writer, and photojournalist during its first three years on the newsstand. Among Caparas's works in the genre of fitness journalism were research pieces on Human Growth Hormone (hGH) and the Soybean. From 1998 to 2000 Caparas was also a major contributor to the Charleston Regional Business Journal, where he landed the lead cover story on numerous issues. During this time Caparas also founded the non-profit Carolina Film Alliance and served as its first Executive Director while exposing mismanagement in South Carolina government film agencies and sparked a media firestorm that eventually led to changes in state film policies and tax incentive laws pertaining to the film industry.

During the 2000s Caparas shifted to web-based photo/video journalism, digital media production, and broadcast journalism. In the wake of 9/11 Wayne leveraged his experience in journalism to manage and negotiate his brother Rally Caparas's transition from Federal Air Traffic Controller to full-time CNN Correspondent and co-anchor as their Air Traffic Expert. Author Stephen King applauded Rally's calming demeanor in his "My Morning People" article published in Entertainment Weekly Magazine.

Education

Caparas graduated from Goose Creek High School, 15 miles north of Downtown Charleston. He earned 8 varsity letters in three sports, and was a standout wide receiver for Coach Steve Gambrell's Goose Creek Gators, a AAAA powerhouse whose cross town rival was the nationally ranked Summerville High School Green Wave led by John McKissick, the winningest coach in football history. Caparas was also a scholar student who garnered many academic honors including Furman Scholar designation and induction into the Goose Creek High School Hall of Fame. In addition to academic scholarships, Caparas received full scholarship offers for both football and track & field, but chose to follow brother Rally to play football for the Furman University Palladins under Coach [...] Sheridan. At the time Furman was an NCAA Division I program. While at Furman Caparas earned Scholar Athlete honors and played for several assistant coaches who would later become head coaches for major universities, including Bobby Johnson and Robbie Caldwell.

The combination of his parents' divorce and worsening knee problems led Caparas to transfer to the College of Charleston where he could be closer to his mom and avoid the temptation of returning to football, as the college has no football program. In 1986 he graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, and soon began studying in the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at the University of South Carolina. It was at this time that he began acting, in the film "Quiet Victory, The Charlie Wedemeyer Story". In 1989 Hurricane Hugo and the birth of his only child sent him instead into his early life as a health club entrepreneur.

Christian Ministry

Caparas converted from atheist to Christian in 1994 after being challenged to read the four Gospels of the Bible for the first time in his life. Though he immediately began serving as a performing artist in a number of large ministries, he continued living his private life as an unbeliever, and four years passed before he accepted the full gospel message and became a born-again Christian. At that point he continued serving as a vocalist or dramatist as needed, but he stopped pursuing fame or wealth as goals in themselves and began investing his entrepreneurial skills into the development of organic ministries while helping plant churches that promote racial and class unity and service to the needy. He also began to seek deeper theological scholarship through post-graduate study, and began attending major conferences on Gospel-based church development, creative communications, and innovative outreach efforts. In 2004 Caparas shifted his service efforts outside the church walls to serve a number of organic ministries, most notably serving as a guest speaker and student evangelist for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and similar ministries that reach out to students and student athletes. Caparas also served 5 years as a volunteer Track & Field coach at West Ashley High School. While there he was instrumental in the creation of the Sandlapper Track & Field Classic as an explicitly Christian sporting event, and it quickly became the largest season opening track meet in the Southeastern United States.

Caparas and his daughter sponsor three orphaned children in Africa through Compassion International and World Vision International.

Awards

  • 1997 U.S. Chamber of Commerce Blue Chip Enterprise Award
  • 1996 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist for South Carolina
  • 1996 South Carolina Governor's Medallion for notable service to the Governor and the State
  • 1995 Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce Small Business Man of the Year
  • 1995 Fitness Management Magazine Nova7 Award for the Most Innovative Health Clubs in America
  • 1995 Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year finalist for South Carolina
  • 1994 Fitness Management Magazine Nova7 Award for the Most Innovative Health Clubs in America
  • 1994 Trident Chamber of Commerce Trident Outstanding Performer Award
  • 1993 Fitness Management Magazine Nova7 Award for the Most Innovative Health Clubs in America