About Us

Marcus Valentiner first learned about Prodigy in 2011 when he and his wife were looking for a daycare place for their son. After he bought Prodigy and started working as the new director in June 2017, he said many times “if we chose any other place back then, I would never sit in this chair now”.

Born and raised in Germany, Marcus career in the financial industry brought him to the United States in 2000 where he lived in New Jersey ever since and in Bayonne since 2006. Since 2009 and driven by his skill to coach and motivate others, he already started looking for new job opportunities, surprisingly or not, also in the educational field. As a father of two, he was always very much involved in every stage of his children’s growing up. He strongly believes that from early age on, children should be provided a broad foundation that balances their intellectual, emotional, social and physical developments and at the same time have fun. At the playground, he was (and still is) the dad, who runs with his son and other children. So in a way, Prodigy probably was the missing piece of a big puzzle that started building over the last eight years. 

Bringing the "inside" view of a parent and the “big picture” view of a professional, he is enthusiastic and committed to further build on Prodigy’s 30-year legacy and expand it to new levels.