Mary Queen Rouse added balloons to her South Carolina clothing resale business in 1985.  Soon, the balloons  took over the business.  Since then Mary Queen has earned international design awards, been published in national and international trade magazines and taught balloon arts on five continents. She teaches in both Spanish and English.

She is a great organizer as well as designer.  She serves as General Manager for Rouse International and has served as President of the Carolinas Chapter of the QBN.  Even in 1989 she was busy organizing a Carolinas Chapter of the National Association of Balloon Artists when she met Graham at the NABA annual convention.   Less than a year later they were honeymooning in the UK following a teaching assignment at a balloon convention in London.

Graham created the first internally structured balloon sculptures in 1983, coined the term "Fantasy Flowers" in 1985, and exhibited his balloon sculptures in 1987 at what we believe is the only one man, public art gallery exhibit in the USA devoted exclusively to balloon art.  In 1989 he was NABA Artist of the Year.

He created the first balloon trees with pvc trunks and limbs in the mid 1980's, introduced the use of hook and loop fasteners for securing balloons in graphics and created the first modular frameworks (Rouse Designer Panels™) manufactured especially for balloon graphics and sculpture  in 1988.  The first "glue dots" manufactured for the balloon industry were produced at Graham and Mary Queen's request for their award winning large sculpture at IBAC in 1993. Graham was granted patents for his systems for "Lite-Sculptures" with balloons and his Rouse Matrix Systems™ for framing balloon sculptures and graphics in 1993 and 2001 respectively.  Currently he has a number of other balloon related patents pending.

Together, their experience, expertise, innovation and personal warmth have brought Mary Queen and  Graham favor as designers, teachers, and consultants in the international balloon community. And, together they recommend the Conwin Dual Split-Second Sizer as a most valuable tool for precision sizing and high productivity.

Mary Queen says, "One of the key factors to the successful use of RMS™ expandable frameworks is efficient and accurate sizing of balloons. The Conwin Dual Split-Second Sizer has proven itself again and again over the years as the premier tool for getting that job done accurately and efficiently.  We use it. We recommend it. I don't like to leave home without it."