![](\"https:\/\/www.google-analytics.com\/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+ignition+and+liftoff+for+the+Challenger+Learning+Center%27s+new+Executive+Director+Alan+Hanstein&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDA4MzU1MzUzMDEzMTkyMzAwMzY5MjY1Mw004)\")
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":12079,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[],"tags":[1136,1135],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTallahassee\u2019s Challenger Learning Center has a new \u201cmission commander.\u201d Alan Hanstein, who took over as executive director this week.<\/p>\n
Although few who know Hanstein are surprised he\u2019s now in charge of the Challenger Learning Center, Hanstein himself still seems a bit amazed by it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody ever thought Michelle Personette wouldn\u2019t be the executive director here. I had been on the board for almost 20 years and I remember when Michelle was hired as the executive director right after Rick Fisher left and she\u2019s been the executive director I\u2019d known the whole time on the board and she really did an incredible job. And I don\u2019t think we would ever had said, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s somebody else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But suddenly, when Personette announced she was leaving not long ago, there was a definite need for somebody else. No longer a Challenger Center board member, Hanstein tossed his name into the hat just to see what might happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did a nationwide search and got many qualified candidates and I was just one of those candidates. And I will tell you as a former board member I would have looked at any of those candidates and said these would be fantastic people to lead the center. So I\u2019m truly humble and honored to be the person that was selected and I take it pretty seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanstein has an extensive background in event registration and management. But he insists his greatest love is laser-focused on aeronautics, aerospace and technology. He sees today as the dawn of a new golden age of space exploration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe renewed interest in space, largely due to a resurgence started by Space-X with all the work that they did at the Cape, but now with Blue Origin and Virgin and Electron and all of these other companies. I was just down at the Cape (Canaveral) last week and it\u2019s just like it was in the Shuttle days. And I can tell you it wasn\u2019t always like that. At the end of the Shuttle (program,) I can remember going down for a meeting at the Cape and it was pretty doom and gloom. They were talking about moving in old-school manufacturing and the brain drain and what-are-we-going-to-do and the whole economy of the area. And now you can\u2019t get a hotel room and building is everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if Florida is once more the nation\u2019s space capital, shouldn\u2019t the space capital\u2019s Capital City also be part of that excitement? Hanstein believes most of that excitement resides in what the Challenger Learning Center can provide the region\u2019s young people. It\u2019s a conviction he expressed four years ago in a board interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids that are here at the center today are going to solve big problems. And it\u2019s not just space. It\u2019s other engineering problems. We\u2019ve got crumbling bridges and infrastructure. And in that 2018 interview, I said we had big medical problems, like diseases and pandemics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he insists he did NOT see COVID coming. Still, Hanstein sees priority one for the Challenger Learning Center as expanding its geographic reach beyond the Capital Region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get 50,000 students a year through our doors, how can we reach more students? So these past 2 weeks, we\u2019ve been doing outreach in Hamilton County where our education staff has been going all the way over to Hamilton County and under a grant, been teaching science education over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanstein sees many facets to that expanded outreach.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the pandemic, our educators created an online system called Europa. We were able to deliver education content nationwide and worldwide. So expanding that reach and also reaching more people in our own community that wouldn\u2019t normally get to the Challenger Center. All my friends know already a big part of that is I\u2019ll be asking for money. Fundraising is important to our mission. When we raise funds, that means we can give scholarships to kids to come to camp, to have us in their classrooms, to get resources like telescopes and microscopes and other things that we can leave there for them and train them on. So all of those are in my \u2018near-view-window.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He plans more aggressive promotion of the Challenger\u2019s awesome asset portfolio, such as the Mission Control facility, planetarium and the region\u2019s biggest IMAX theater. Also on Hanstein\u2019s event horizon is leveraging the Challenger Learning Center\u2019s status as an offshoot of the FAMU\/FSU College of Engineering and the family connection to both universities. He says he\u2019s already received an email of welcome – along with a partnership proposal – from one of the schools\u2019 bio-science researchers.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019I\u2019ve got some research I\u2019m doing; I\u2019m looking for a grant, but also I\u2019ve worked out some ways we can do cell education using Legos and I\u2019d love to come talk to your students in your camp about it.\u2019 I literally just started today, but this is the email that makes me realize I already love my job. Just being in here seeing the kids having fun. And my wife Amy\u2019s probably already getting sick of me! I text her about 20 times a day to say, \u2018Did I mention I love my job? I love my job!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The job that’s now held by the Challenger Learning Center\u2019s new executive director, Alan Hanstein. <\/p>\n
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