Dean Wellins was born March 24th, 1971 to Stan and Ellen Wellins at a US Air Force Base near Zaragosa, Spain. At about the age of three, his father (a Dentist/Oral Surgeon in the Air Force) was re-stationed and Dean along with his brothers William and Mike and his sister Patti, moved back to the US. First to Wyoming them finally to Merced, California. A few years later, his parents divorced and Dean spent the rest of his childhood with his mother and siblings in Merced until she remarried and moved them to Dos Palos, California where he went to Junior High and High School. After graduating he attended the University of California at Davis, where he studied art and design and was later accepted into the Character Animation Program at CalArts in Valencia, California. He then spent the next 27 years in the animation industry working on feature films such as The Iron Giant, Frozen, Zootopia and Big Hero 6. He then joined the director ranks at Walt Disney Animation Studios beginning with the short film, "Tick Tock Tale" in 2009 and Feature Film "Raya and the Last Dragon". He lives in Newhall, California with his wife, Teresa and his three sons Ethan, Owen and Aiden.