The Parker Foundation of San Diego (www.theparkerfoundation.org) has awarded an Grant in the amount of $30,000 to support our Science and Technology Resource Center. The Parker Foundation was founded on October 5, 1971 for charitable purposes leading to the betterment of life for all people of San Diego County. Gerald T. and Inez Grant Parker shared a lifetime of devotion to the betterment of their community.

The Science and Technology Teacher Resource Center will be: 1) a “distribution center” where San Diego County teachers can secure free classroom materials that would normally be thrown away at the end of conferences and conventions; 2) a “library/resource center” for educators who want to learn about and order science and technology curriculum materials created by various government agencies (e.g. NASA); 3) a “meeting place” for professional gatherings and teacher professional development workshops.

The California Space Grant Foundation is pleased to announce that Mr. D Stephen Boner has consented to join our Board of Directors.   Stephen is the senior partner in the law firm of Boner & Stern, APC, located in San Diego’s Mission Valley.

Being involved with charitable organizations is close to Mr. Boner’s heart, and he has served on the boards of various charities, including Boy Scouts of America, City of Hope, Hebrew Home for the Aged (Officer and Director), La Jolla High School Foundation, National Association of Multiple Sclerosis (Chair), San Diego Museum of Man, and UCSD Planned Giving Executives Committee. Mr. Boner has especially enjoyed serving on the Grants and Philanthropic Committees of the prestigious San Diego Foundation Committee, which distributes charitable funds throughout the San Diego community.

A graduate of Occidental College, Mr. Boner earned his Juris Doctor from California Western University’s School of Law. Upon receiving his law degree, Mr. Boner became a Deputy Commissioner of Corporations for the State of California. Subsequently, he served as Deputy City Attorney for San Diego.  He is a member of the San Diego County, California, and American Bar Associations and has served on numerous association committees, including the Ethics Committee of the California Bar Association.  A community activist, Mr. Boner has served in the San Diego Estate Planning Council since 1975 and is a Board of Director of the Small Business Council of America.  Mr. Boner is a member of the La Jolla Sunrise Rotary Club, and he also served as a Founder, Director, and Chairman of the Audit Committee for the California Heritage Bank. In addition, Mr. Boner served a term as a member of the Mayor’s Business License Review Committee.

The California Space Grant Foundation was recently notified that the IRS has accepted our status change from Private Foundation to Publicly Supported Organization under section 509 and 170 of the IRS Code.  On November 17th the IRS wrote that:

“Grantors and donors may rely on the determination that you are not a private foundation”

Gifts to the California Space Grant Foundation remain tax deductible and we retain our 501c3 status.  We now gain the added designation as Publicly Supported Organization allowing us to qualify for gifts and grants from other public charities.

The IRS determination will become final after a 60 month evaluation period beginning January 1st 2007.  For more information about our programs or to donate to our programs contact a foundation representative at info@csgf.org.

California Space Grant Foundation and Latino Literacy Now presented a $1000.00 Edward James Olmos Latino Literacy Scholarship to David Palacios at the Latino Book and Family Festival held in Los Angeles California. David was inspired to attend college when in 7th grade he won the scholarship while attending a Latino Book and Family Festival. Awarding of the $1,000 scholarship was contingent on his attending college. He is now attending Long Beach City College and is studying criminology.

CSGF personnel have joined with the Space 2006 Conference and Education Alley Team. This year the theme for this major space conference was The Value Proposition for Space – Security, Discovery, Prosperity. Led by James Grady the CSGF Team including Dr. Mike Wiskerchen, Bruce Pittman and Phil Smith helped lead the New Space Partnerships for the Value Proposition Track that included plenary sessions and paper presentations over the three days. The track culminated with the premiere showing of the film: Legacy of Apollo: Enduring Gift to Humanity by Michael Danty and Kathleen Connell.

Claudia von Wilpert and Sharon Freeburn volunteered to support Education Alley. Every year a large portion of the conference floor is dedicated to reaching young people throughout the city in which the conference is held. This year more than 4000 students and their teachers toured education outreach booths with hands on activities, were led by volunteer docents, interacted with engineers, scientists and astronauts and learned about potential careers in science, math, engineering and technology.

Katrina Emery and Phil Smith were invited to participate in NASA's Office of Education – Education Partnerships Forum held in Washington D.C. The meetings focus is inspiring and empowering leaders to cultivate and sustain NASA partnerships that address the three agency education priority outcomes of NASA education. The purpose of the NASA Education Partnerships Forum was to; Increase knowledge and understanding of the national context of NASA's Education Legacy of Innovation; Use NASA's Education Framework ("Pyramid") and strategy to inspire and empower leaders as Innovation Change Agents and Advocates; Foster understanding of a systems approach to address the three priority education outcomes; Clarify the strategy using Education Panels at each Center; Foster participant discussion and capture ideas/common visions of education partnerships as a strategy to achieve NASA education outcomes and support national initiatives to increase student pursuit of STEM career paths, including teaching; Identify ongoing education efforts with which NASA might collaborate and leverage its unique people, content and facilities. It is anticipated that these forums will continue to be sponsored by NASA over the coming years.

The California Space Grant Foundation and staff will be participating in the AIAA Space 2006 Conference in San Jose, California.

The Calfornia Space Grant Foundation managed a Simulated Space Workshop at the NASA Training and Conference Center (Building 3) at the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California.  The workshop was sponsored by the Alliance For Commercial Enterprises in Space (ACES http://www.alliancespace.net), the Silicon Valley Space Club (SVSC), Innovation Labs and NASA Ames with the goal of promoting the development of virtual reality space simulation capabilities for education and entertainment, as well as to provide support for real space mission planning by NASA and the DoD.

The SIM-Space Teams goal is to open the space high frontier for a new generation by promoting the development of an internet based reality application to provide a fun, realistic, multi-media, simulation of human and robotic space exploration, development and commercialization. We envision students building their own space program, individually and in groups. This will help make early learning in science and technology fun and exciting and will enhance science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The tools and programs developed will also aid real space exploration and mission planning by providing new simulation tools, and a full exploration of various vehicle options and mission architectures to help identify the most attractive options for the government and commercial space to meet their goals. �

Phil Smith, CSGF CEO was presented the AIAA 1st Place award for Public Policy – Large Section at an award luncheon held during AIAA’s Science conference today.  With more than 31,000 members, AIAA is the world’s largest professional society devoted to the progress of engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. Serving this elite audience and its historic mission is our commitment and our privilege.   The AIAA Public Policy Award is presented to sections for stimulating public awareness of the needs and benefits of aerospace research and development, particularly on the part of government representatives, and for educating its members in the value of public policy activities.�

The California Space Grant Foundation welcomed Ms. Mary Luke to our team today.  Mary joins the AERO Institute as a Training and Education Assistant supporting the Dryden Learning Center.   Mary joins Frank Henzel providing high quality administrative support to the training program and members of the training team; Speaker/Trainer liaison for the Training & Education Program; maintenance of the training databases, including general correspondence; preparation and collation of material and papers for meetings, conferences and courses for delegates; and coordination of course publicity utilizing a variety of communications. Welcome Mary.