By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Assistant district attorney. Intellectual-property lawyer. CEO of an international company. Family man.

Tom Colson is or has been all those things, but he has his sights set a bit higher: He wants to be remembered as a man who changed the world.

Colson, 45, who left his career as a lawyer largely behind to head IP.com, an intellectual-property software company, is the creator, writer and publisher of "A Girl Named Pants," a series of children's books aimed at inspiring young girls with the message that anything is possible.

"I have this vision that at some point in the future there is going to be a (woman) president of the United States, or maybe the president of one of those countries that is deep and dark for women, and they are going to say that one of the things that inspired them to be president was ‘A Girl Named Pants,' " he said.

As the father to three girls, 10-year-old Olivia and 9-year-old twins Emma and Gabrielle, Colson had read his share of children's books and taken in plenty of G-rated movies, but it was a trip to see the Disney animated film "Treasure Planet" that spawned his creative venture.

The film featured a spaceship traveling the universe looking for an elusive planet where riches were said to be hidden. The captain of the ship was a dog named Amelia, and her first mate was an imposing figure made of stone named Mr. Arrow. The concept was foreign to Olivia, and her reaction was eye-opening for Colson.

"As we were watching the film, my daughter asked me what kind of creature the stone thing was," he explained. "I told her he was the lieutenant and he worked for the captain and she said, ‘Dad, that's impossible, the dog is a girl, and a girl can't be a captain.' Somehow, in the first four years of her life, the world had educated my daughter that girls couldn't be captains."

And so it was that Colson decided to take matters into his own hands and create an empowering character to teach his daughters that they could indeed captain a ship, lead a country, or do anything else they believed in.

"It began when I decided I wanted to create a motivational center, for girls in particular, in my house," Colson said. "Every night, we would either read a story or tell a story, and whatever the story was, the girl was always the superstar."

Soon the idea of empowering his daughters began to snowball, and Colson decided he and the girls would turn their bedtime stories into a book.

"It was my vision that we would open up a (Microsoft) Word file, type on the bottom of the page, print it out, and simply have them draw the pictures on top, staple it together, and make books," he said. "Part of it was that we all did it together. We came up with the stories together, the names together (he credits Gabrielle with coming up with the unique name for the star of his book series), and we developed the books together."

Though the concept was simple enough, there were details to work out - Colson wasn't a writer and, by his own account, knew nothing about how to turn his brainchild into a book.

"I run a software company for a living, I don't (make books), and although I've never done anything like this before, I thought, ‘How hard can it be to create a book?' " he said. "What I found out was that it is really hard."

Colson estimates that he spent an average of four hours a night, five nights a week for eight months writing, researching and educating himself on the book-production process. While seeking out a traditional publisher for "Pants" was an option, the lawyer sought other possibilities.

"I am very sensitive, by nature of my career, to owning the brand and owning the intellectual property," he said. "So I decided to do it myself."

With family and friends acting as his editors and with a budget of $15,000, Colson set out reach a world of young girls with his message of empowerment.

"There are two things I say to my girls every morning. The first is ‘What can you do today?' " Colson said. "Our vision is to get them to believe they can do anything. Then I tell them, ‘Be superheroes today!' These books were a way of showing them that wasn't just talk. We created the stories, and because they believe they can do anything, we created the books."

Since releasing the first five books in the Pants series, Colson has sold roughly 6,000 copies, most of them locally. He knows he could sell more were it not for that day-job thing, but he says "Pants" isn't about profit, it's about purpose.

"I don't even consider myself a writer, I'm a business guy," he said. "To me, these books aren't products, they are marketing brochures for my character, a mechanism for getting this character named Pants out into the world, and the writing is just the means to make that happen."

Colson is working on several avenues to expand both the reach and the appeal of "A Girl Named Pants."

First up is progressing from the first five picture books in the series, whose target audience is 4-to-7-year-olds, to chapter books for older girls, in which Pants begins to grow up.

"Once I have them hooked as a kindergartner, I don't want to lose them in the second grade," he said. Along with the new style, he has brought on an illustrator and a co-author to collaborate with him on the books.

Katie Orcutt, who illustrated the chapter books, two of which have been completed so far, said Colson's energy and passion for Pants was contagious.

"I went to school for animation and my focus was primarily in 2-D and 3-D animation, so originally I wasn't going to do it," she said of the project. "But Tom convinced me, and I am so glad I did it."

Colleen Adams, who coauthored the latest book in the series, "A Girl Named Pants and Her Amazing Victory," credits Colson with giving an unpublished aspiring writer a shot to be part of his vision.

"I was nervous at first, but he talked me through the process, and it took us about a summer to finish the book," she said. It was "a rush," Adams said, to see the book with her name on the cover. "It was a great opportunity, and I feel very accomplished to say at 22 that I have a published book, so the entire experience was great for me."

Colson also connected with a local bookseller to create a program to bring Pants into elementary schools throughout Western New York.

"Tom did a very successful author visit at the bookstore I used to work at," said Kim Krug, who opened a bookstore in Clarence in June. "So when I was working to open Monkey See Monkey Do, I contacted him about working together."

That led to Colson not only selling his book series in the store - "A Girl Named Pants and Her Amazing Victory" is the top-selling book in the store, according to Krug - but to putting on seminars for young girls on topics such as mastering public speaking, and partnering with Krug to coordinate his in-school visits and book sales.

"I don't make any money at this because I don't care about making money on it. I have a vision to change the world," Colson said, noting that he sells the books to Krug at cost. "She can go out to St. Greg's (St. Gregory the Great School in Amherst) and sell 80 books in a half-hour. Compare that to how long it would take an independent bookstore to sell 80 books."

Long-term, Colson sees Krug replicating the program with independent bookstores throughout the country. He envisions "A Girl Named Pants" becoming a household title with the ability to touch lives worldwide.

"Imagine that a young girl reads one of these books and it changes the trajectory of her life by even the smallest amount," he said. "By the time they get 10 years down the road, they could be on a completely different path, and so far ahead of where they could have been."