March 14, 2024 • 26 mins
Adalene “Nene” Spivy has been leading the Northern Virginia Science Center Foundation (DBA Children’s Science Center) since 2010 and is among its earliest founders. Under Nene’s leadership, the Center experienced exponential growth and served hundreds of thousands of children, families and educators and at the Children’s Science Center Lab, which opened in 2015, and through mobile community STEM programming serving the greater region. Nene oversees current operations and leads the effort to build the new Northern Virginia Science Center. This world-class interactive science center is being developed via a public private partnership with Loudoun County, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the Science Museum of Virginia.
As an engineer, MBA, and non-profit leader, Nene has an extensive and diverse range of management experience in both technology businesses and non-profits including new product development, systems and process engineering, fundraising, finance, marketing, advocacy, strategic planning, volunteer management, and board development.
Nene serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, and the Northwest Federal Credit Union Foundation. Nene is a sustaining member and past President of the Junior League of Northern Virginia, a graduate of Leadership Fairfax, past Chair of Fairfax County’s Community Action Advisory Board, and served in multiple board leadership roles with Discovery Creek Children’s Museum. Nene holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech and MBA from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
As an engineer, MBA, and non-profit leader, Nene has an extensive and diverse range of management experience in both technology businesses and non-profits including new product development, systems and process engineering, fundraising, finance, marketing, advocacy, strategic planning, volunteer management, and board development.
Nene serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, and the Northwest Federal Credit Union Foundation. Nene is a sustaining member and past President of the Junior League of Northern Virginia, a graduate of Leadership Fairfax, past Chair of Fairfax County’s Community Action Advisory Board, and served in multiple board leadership roles with Discovery Creek Children’s Museum. Nene holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech and MBA from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
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(00:00):
M and T Bank Prison CEOs youshould know powered by Iheartadia. Let's be
Ninie Spivey. She is the executivedirector of the Children's Science Center LAB located
in Fairfax, and the Northern VirginiaScience Center, which is coming to Loudun
County. Here's you need to talkabout both before we talk about both brands
and what they offer. I firstasked Nani to talk a little bit about
herself, where she's from and herorigin story. I was not born in
(00:22):
the United States. I was bornin Vienna, Austria, which is really
funny because I live in Vienna,Virginia now, so all my family in
Austria, you know, can feelreally connected to me. But I came
over as a preschooler, only speakingGerman and settled in the southeast and Georgia
and made my way up not toofar up the East coast, lived in
(00:48):
Tennessee, and then went to collegein Virginia and have lived in Northern Virginia
for a few decades and love ithere. I know this isn't going to
surprise you, but I talked toso many immigrants originally from a different country
that have landed here as a youngperson and done incredible things with their lives,
which is my favorite part about theDMV because I'm sure you can agree.
(01:10):
It's a melting pot, isn't it. It really is. And I
have to say it feels so muchlike home to me because everyone's from everywhere,
so I feel so welcome. Ifeel like I belong here, and
I just love meeting people from somany places, and I just think it's
a really special part of the UnitedStates. So, Nini, we're obviously
(01:33):
here to talk about the Northern VirginiaScience Center and also the Children's Science Center.
You've got kind of two brands,and we want to make that very
clear to everybody. Get two amazingplaces that people can check out and all
the incredible things that are going on. But what we like to do in
this series is also give people somecontext to why it led you to this
job currently and all the amazing thingsyou've done, which you have. I
saw your resume. It's very cool, and I know people don't like to
(01:55):
talk about themselves and their whole workhistory, but tell us a little bit
about yourself before you join as aexecutive director and all the cool things that
you've done before you're at your currentplace. Yeah. Yeah, So I
landed in Virginia because I got intoVirginia Tech and I wanted to study engineering.
And you know, it was reallyhard to decide because I loved so
many subjects growing up, but reallyloved that idea of problem solving and making
(02:23):
the world better for people through solutions, and engineering certainly does that. So
I did Industrial and systems engineering andundergrad and I got out of Tech and
I went to work for what wasthen Anderson Consulting what is now Accenture.
The telecommunications industry group was booming atthe time in the nineties. You know,
(02:45):
there's so much excitement with the ninetysix Tail Communications Act and everything before
and after that time. That reallyfueled a lot of activity in the technology
industry in our area. And soI was working with MCI as a client
for a while and found that tobe such a fascinating and interesting origin story
(03:07):
in and of itself. Did Ilearned how to program in cobol. I
feel like a dinosaur now, butyou know, I was sort of proud
of myself with then that. Youknow, I was able to do some
coding and do some design work.But then I thought, you know,
and this I also laugh at youknow, I don't want to pigeonhole myself
in it, which I again Ilaugh now, because you know, I
(03:28):
might have actually been a better pathjust to keep going on hindsight. But
I wanted, I really wanted tolook at organization's end to end. I
really liked the idea of running anorganization and end and decided to get my
MBA and so as a slight trader, I went to UVA after going to
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Virginia Tech, and I got myMBA at UVA. But it was an
extraordinary experience because of the method ofstudy at UVA is all case study.
You're really thrown into all these differentsituations. It's a boot camp. I
mean, it's hard, hard work. Never worked harder. But when I
got out, I stayed in Telcom, went to MCI again. It was
(04:11):
exploding and I got to do somereally exciting things in branching out into new
markets, launching local telephone service rememberthe good old days of long distance in
local and MCI was really trying tobreak into that local market. Got to
testify at public utility hearings as anexpert on operational systems. During that period
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of implementing the tele Communications Act,and it was. It was truly fascinating.
And then there were a number ofstartups forming. So I went to
work for what I called the startupon steroids and the telcom industry, at
least it was called Intelligent, andAlex Mandel came from AT and T to
around Intelligent, and so we hadsome titans of industry. But again it
was a startup, highly entrepreneurial,launching new markets all over the country.
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Really really exciting until you know,Telcom sort of went bust and then it
was really not exciting. But youknow, you learn in different ways.
I mean, certainly the rise andfall of various companies and industries, the
good times and bad build your strengthas an executive and serve you well down
(05:21):
down the line in a variety ofways. So I really did appreciate those
days. And then I also becauseof what happened in the industry and because
of what I was witnessing, Ireally realized that, you know, I
needed to do something different in mylife. I needed to see the difference
(05:45):
that I would be making in people'slives in a more direct way. I
knew that, you know, ifI didn't show up for work the next
morning, people would still be usingtelephones. Yeah, it wasn't gonna make
a massive change, and so Ireally felt the calling to pivot into the
nonprofit industry. And you know,like in many things, you sort of
(06:08):
fall into different opportunities. One ofthose opportunities was serving on the board of
a small children's museum in the district. It doesn't exist by this name today,
but some listeners may remember Discovery CreekChildren's Museum. And that was my
first exposure to the museum industry.And I was really inspired by the founder,
(06:30):
the late su Seligman, and hervision for creating stewards of the natural
environment by raising our young generation tojust love nature. And so we did
a lot of amazing programs to getkids excited about the wonderful environment that we
live in and to grow up andtake care of it. And so I
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loved that work. It was fascinatingto learn about the museum industry and exhibits
and education in an informal setting withmuseum educators versus you know, classroom teachers
were the only educators I'd met inmy years. I also got very involved
in the Junior League of Northern VirginiaAll Women Service Organization, amazing professionals from
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all over the DMV area, andwe worked together to lived up the Northern
Virginia community. We focused on childrenwho were homeless and in shelters. We
worked in a lot of different settings. There's a lot of need, you
know, Northern Virginia and the entireDC area, but Northern Virginia especially,
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you know, has a reputation ofhaving you know, everybody has everything they
need, right. You know,we're wealthy counties, et cetera, et
cetera, but there are a lotof people that need a hand. Here,
a lot of kids. We havethirty percent, maybe even a third
of our child population qualifies for freeand reduce lunch. Got a lot of
(08:03):
kids that don't have access and exposureto the kind of enriching educational experiences that
my kids were having. And soas I got involved in the Junior League,
I got to be a part ofa lot of projects, whether it
was helping outfit new homeless shelters withfamily rooms and learning rooms for children and
(08:26):
adults, or whether it was workingon issues around food insecurity and nutrition.
It was very much exposed to community. I also had the opportunity to be
involved in leadership, fair facts andlearn more about our county and the region
and again the need, the needthat is here. And so as the
(08:48):
opportunity came up to be a partof the founders of a new museum to
create the Children Science Center and ultimatelywhere we're going with Northern Virginia Science Center,
it combined all of those experiences inso many ways. So that's more
of my path. Well, thankyou for that. And you have a
(09:09):
passion obviously for all the things you'vedone and what you're doing currently, which
we're going to find out a littlebit more about now and what I want
to do first before we get intoprograms, events, and of course you
know how you can get there,how you can attend things that you offer
for the families of children, anybodythat would like to attend your two different
brands. What's the overall mission statementfor us? Yeah, so our mission
(09:31):
is to inspire a love of learningand STEM that is science, technology,
engineering, and math by creating uniqueopportunities to explore and create. Okay,
let's do this, din No,it's not going to be this easy,
but you know the brand very wellbecause you've been there for over ten plus
years, and I've seen You've seenthe evolution, the cool things that are
happening, and what's going to happenin the future. But if I were
(09:52):
to come to you, Ninia,I'm saying that nobody's ever heard of the
Northern Virginia Science Center or the Children'sScience Center. What would you say that
they do and that they both offer. Yeah, So we are all in
on exciting kids youth about learning,especially in the STEM arena, and we
(10:13):
do this in a very informal,hands on experiential way. So we provide
those experiences both at our site todaywe operate the Children's Science in Our Lab
at fair Oaks as well as beyondour walls. We go to schools and
libraries and sometimes festivals all across theNorthern Virginia area and we bring in hands
(10:35):
on STEM experiences. So we popup all over the area and it's really
all about getting kids excited. Wework a lot with teachers and educators.
They bring their classes to the Children'sScience in Our Lab, we push out
to their school a program called FamilyScience Night. So even by the name
of that you can tell we workwith teachers, but we also work with
(10:58):
families and parents are a really bigpart, important part, and caregivers and
grandparents. You know, everyone ina child's orbit are important enablers and accessors
and supporters and cheerleaders of their child'slearning. And so we love to make
family learning happen. We love toprovide experiences where people can be all together
(11:22):
and really be exploring the cool thingsthat are STAMP. I love that.
So I'm super curious if you couldtake us behind the curtain a little bit,
because there are so many exhibits,there's so many different things that you
can bring in and then another onecomes in in and out, in and
out, and all the different thingsthat are available. How is that all
decided? And how many people doyou work with? And I know you
(11:43):
have a team, but if anybodyknows about executive directors, folks, it's
busy three sixty five twenty four seven. It never ends. It is a
very hard job, but also veryrewarding and very passionate, as you can
hear the need he is. Butwith all that said, how do you
decide in the end about how thingscome in and then how they go out
and the new one comes back here? Wow? Yeah, Well you're right,
(12:03):
I mean it's a team effort andthere are great professionals involved in this
effort, and it's often a verycross collaborative, cross functional effort. So
we have our team. We havean education team, but we also have
a community engagement team that it's helpingus think about the community that we're serving
and reaching all in that community.We have our communications team. There are
(12:26):
really experts and how we package andpromote things. We brought a lot of
sort of the fundamentals of business,and my work Intel Communications was very much
around product development, and so webrought a lot of those product development kind
of principles to the work that wedo in the museum where we're thinking about
the various ps and the packaging andthe pricing and all across the museum industry.
(12:52):
We are really trying to connect withthe public and the way they want
to be connected with. So partof that design, as well as sort
of vetting and packaging, is reallyabout, you know, how do we
have the hook? You know,what does everybody really love? Where people
think is really cool? You know, what's something they're really curious about?
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And you want exhibits, you wantprograms, and you want you know,
all of your communications to really havethat fun hook and so, you know,
sometimes it's it's little things like welearned early on. We have this
great experience at the Children's Science inour lab that everyone loves. It's called
(13:35):
Experiment Bar, and so you pullup a stool at the bar and you
order an experiment off the menu,and we rotate those experiments so there's something
new each time. We have oureducators when we open the bar, and
when we first opened the lab said, oh, you know, our name
should be stem Tenders, you know, because we're tending the bar. That's
(13:56):
crazy. So so the you know, the Experiment Bar activity. We also
create an ebook. Amazon donating kindlesfrom the beginning and they continue to support
us, and we create an ebookfor every experiment to scaffold the process,
right, because it has to besomething that people can really a want to
do, like pick it off themenu, you know it, does it
look cool and compelling, does ithave a great you know name? Right,
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It's it's basic marketing, but alsosomething that is fun to actually do.
Put your hands on too. Weget to use beakers, do we
get to use graduated cylinders? Dowe get to use you know, make
stuff you know, is it?You know, and when it comes to
kids is a messy check we wantmessy parents would rather have the mess with
us, right, yes, andteachers too, right. So so a
lot of those things are not sounlike you know, the for profits world
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consumer packaging, right, does ithave a cool name. But one of
the funny things I'll share with youis that early on we discovered I mean,
this is not you're not going tobe shocked, but everyone loves slime,
right, Yes, they're crazy aboutwhy. And I think we hit
the slime wave, or maybe wecreated the slime wave, because we literally
have come up with like dozens ofdifferent kinds of slime to have at the
(15:07):
experiment bar from magnetic slime to youknow, I don't know, you know,
snowland slime. I mean, we'vewe've come up with every kind of
scenario. But what we discovered prettyearly on is that when kids would come
back, if there was not slimeon the menu, there were tears.
And so you know, you sortof have to listen to your audience.
And that's that's from the grown maneverybody. That's all the dads, those
(15:31):
dads. But in any case,you know, it is about being really
responsive to the audience and listening,and so that's a big part of the
way that we put together experiences.And so for the big science center that
we're building, the Northern Virginia ScienceCenter, we had a lot of community
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conversations over the years and community designsessions, and we brought in the pros
and we have an amazing museum industrywith people that specialize and interactive hands on
exhibits that really wow people. Andso, you know, put everyone together,
the community, the designers, andyou can come up with some just
really great concepts, fun concepts,and you know, and the sky's the
(16:15):
limit. And I think the designprocess for the big science centers has been
really rewarding experience. And now wehave a beautiful design that everyone can actually
see and fly through the future ScienceCenter on our website for the new science
Center, novaside dot org. Youknow, Nini, one of my big
takeaways from what you just talked aboutis the fun in science. And I'm
(16:37):
going to date myself a little bit, but you know, between Beekman's World
and Bill ny the Science Guy,and Neil de Grasse Tyson and all the
science geeks that we watch on televisionover the last thirty years. They brought
the fun and the entertainment how coolscience can be. And I can tell
with just a few of the exhibitsyou've talked about about the fun you can
as a family at your place,which I really love. Then it's not
(17:00):
boring and it's not way above everybodysaid, you're having a good time while
you're learning some really cool things.So I appreciate you doing that. I
know that Launch the Future campaign isa really big deal. And anytime you're
talking about a nonprofit, especially whenyou have so many exhibits coming in and
out, then money is a necessity. So if you could just talk a
little bit about fundraising, your campaignpartners and just that important piece, because
(17:21):
I know that is also a fulltime job in itself. Oh yes,
yes, it's when we started thiseffort, and it's been for me in
about eighteen years, you know,I think the organization was founded just before
that, about you know, notquite twenty years ago. We really thought,
hey, you know all these otherbig cities of you know, children's
museums and science centers, sometimes multiplesof them. You know, this can't
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be that hard, you know,we need it we've got a large population.
But it turned out to be quitea challenge. And as we have
set out on this journey over somany years, we learned a lot along
the way, and we realized throughfeasibility studies and really you know, founding
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the pavement, that we couldn't dothis just as a small band of you
know, concerned community leaders, right. It was going to take some serious
partnerships. And we were very fortunateto be able to put together an amazing
and powerful public private partnership with theCommonwealth of Virginia and with Louden County and
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with a developer in Louden at Kincoraright off Route twenty eight, just north
of Dell's Airport. And so thepartnerships have been so important because we have
this gift of land, but yougot to be able to put a building
on it. And the project isover one hundred million dollar project, and
so this is a heavy lift fora small nonprofit. But when you bring
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in big partners, you bring inthe Commonwealth and the Science Museum of Virginia,
you bring in know how resources,you know, a lot of great
things can happen. And so weare in we're in a great place in
the process, but the work iscertainly not done. We are in the
midst of our private fundraising campaign andin that large project, we have about
(19:19):
five million to go. So it'sgoing to be there. You know,
we're going to build it. We'regoing to start building it in twenty twenty
four, which is super exciting.But we are still at a point where
we may not be able to buildall the exhibits right, we may not
be able to make it as greatas we have planned and as our community
is envisioned if we don't close outthis campaign. And so we are definitely
(19:44):
still at a point where we're makingnew friends and we're asking, you know,
some of the companies and families thatfirst got us started in the early
days to really help us lift upthis project and make it a priority,
because it's not every day, it'snot even every year, every decade or
every lifetime that you get to createa resource that just simply doesn't exist and
(20:10):
until you know, you put itthere. And so I think that's been
really compelling for everyone is there's away for everyone to be a part of
it. Not all of us canbe those title partners that that you know,
can give a million dollars to aproject like this, Sometimes people you
know it can help in so manydifferent ways. And I think that's the
(20:32):
beauty of this is that we've reallywanted to make this about our entire community,
that it's really for the community,and it's by the community, and
whether it's volunteerism, whether it isbeing able to make gifts to the project
pro bono support. We've had amazingpro bono support over the years. Everyone
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can be a part of it.We rely heavily on volunteers. We needed
volunteers. I don't want to sayevery day of the week, but yeah,
pretty much every day of the week. We operate seven days a week.
We're beyond our walls out across thecommunity in schools and libraries, and
we're at our facility in Fairfax,and we need people who who love working
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with families and children, working withthe public that are excited about science and
technology, engineering and math. There'sso many ways to plug in. So
I really think it's for everyone,but I appreciate that it isn't for everyone.
But we do hope that people willbe curious about this project and I
want to help in some way.Grace great and small, there's always a
(21:44):
way to make a difference. Well, great, and we're going to give
the website hours of operation where they'relocated. A lot of our savaging listeners
have already done that as they listento this, but we're going to do
that for everybody at the end.But Nini, what I like to do
at the end of our series hereand I really enjoyed our conversation, and
I can't tell you how much weappreciate your valuable time because we know how
busy you are. But I'd lovefor you to give our listeners just maybe
a few takeaways when it comes tothe Northern Virginia Science Center and also the
(22:07):
Children's Science Center, just some takeawaysthat you would like to leave everybody with
as we close out our conversation.I think the key takeaways for the Science
Center and engaging with us is thatwe are delivering a mission today. So
you don't have to wait. Youdon't have to wait to bring your family,
you don't have to wait to volunteer, you don't have to wait to
(22:30):
be a partner. And there's waysto support our mission today in a myriad
of ways, whether it's volunteerism orfunds or what have you, and then
we have our vision for tomorrow.This vision is about to come to full
fruition. We are getting started withConsurrection in twenty four is going to be
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rising out of the ground. Andit's also not too late to to get
involved and make sure that we buildthis resource to be the best it can
be for our community. And then, last, but not least, we
are evolving as a science center.We have been a children's science center.
(23:15):
We've been focused on pre K throughtwelve, working with children and youth as
they grow up in our community.But at Northern Virginia Science Center, we
will be for people of all agesand we're not going to stop working with
our children. That is our breadand butter and our youth and allowing them
(23:36):
to be young leaders that support themission. But we will also be a
place for adults to come and getexcited about the amazing things that are happening
in our region. We will haveprograms that are specifically for adults and that
might be connecting with amazing scientists atNIH or Howard Hughes or Technolo from some
(24:00):
of our big tech companies. There'sgoing to be so many ways to benefit
us you know, a citizen andconsumer of STEM as well as a champion
and supporter of STEM and community.And if I may add slime for all
the dads. Okay, so don'twant for all the dead, well we'll
set you up. Okay, let'sdo this for everybody. Let's give some
(24:21):
website information. If you'd like togive social media channels, you're able to
do that too. Hours of operation, where you're located. Once again,
on our listeners are probably googled,you have big time. But let's give
that to everybody. Yeah. Sowe have two websites today, the Children's
Science Center and everything about the childnScience Center Lab and all of our outreach
programs you can learn about at childsidot org. And our website for the
(24:45):
Future Science Center, where you cansee the amazing fly through and learn about
how to become a partner, isat novasi dot org. We have Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn channels orChildren's Science Center and another set for
Northern Virginia Science Center. So definitelycome visit us online or on any of
(25:11):
these channels. On Facebook, youcan find us at Children's Science Center or
at NOVASAI. On Instagram, youcan find us at child Size Center lab
or at NOVASAI. On Twitter,you can find us at CHILDSI or at
Novasai Center. On LinkedIn, you'llfind us at Children's Science Center or Northern
Virginia Science Center. We hope tosee you there. Outstanding well, Nini,
(25:33):
I really enjoyed a conversation, folks. I want to let you also
know that we just had the tipof the iceberg of all the amazing things
that both of the science centers canoffer for adults and families, or by
yourself, who are you with orif you're with a big group, it
really is a lot of fun.It's educational, but I think the big
takeaway from Niini, folks is there'sa lot of fun there too and a
lot of learning, which is greatfor everybody. So thank you so much
(25:56):
for this. I just want towish you continue success. I know it's
hard work, but I can alsotell it's really rewarding to you because there's
so many people that get so muchfrom you and your team that offers them
to be better human beings and tohave a lot of fun and to get
back to the community. And who'salso very generous as well too. So
thank you for your time and Thankyou so much for joining us on CEOs
you should know. Thank you.Our community partner, M and T Bank
(26:18):
supports CEOs you should know is partof their ongoing commitment to building strong communities,
and that starts by backing the businesseswithin them. As a Bank for
communities, M and T believes indedicating time, talent, and resources to
help local businesses thrive because when businessessucceed, our communities succeed.
M and T Bank Prison CEOs youshould know powered by Iheartadia. Let's be
Ninie Spivey. She is the executivedirector of the Children's Science Center LAB located
in Fairfax, and the Northern VirginiaScience Center, which is coming to Loudun
County. Here's you need to talkabout both before we talk about both brands
and what they offer. I firstasked Nani to talk a little bit about
herself, where she's from and herorigin story. I was not born in
(00:22):
the United States. I was bornin Vienna, Austria, which is really
funny because I live in Vienna,Virginia now, so all my family in
Austria, you know, can feelreally connected to me. But I came
over as a preschooler, only speakingGerman and settled in the southeast and Georgia
and made my way up not toofar up the East coast, lived in
(00:48):
Tennessee, and then went to collegein Virginia and have lived in Northern Virginia
for a few decades and love ithere. I know this isn't going to
surprise you, but I talked toso many immigrants originally from a different country
that have landed here as a youngperson and done incredible things with their lives,
which is my favorite part about theDMV because I'm sure you can agree.
(01:10):
It's a melting pot, isn't it. It really is. And I
have to say it feels so muchlike home to me because everyone's from everywhere,
so I feel so welcome. Ifeel like I belong here, and
I just love meeting people from somany places, and I just think it's
a really special part of the UnitedStates. So, Nini, we're obviously
(01:33):
here to talk about the Northern VirginiaScience Center and also the Children's Science Center.
You've got kind of two brands,and we want to make that very
clear to everybody. Get two amazingplaces that people can check out and all
the incredible things that are going on. But what we like to do in
this series is also give people somecontext to why it led you to this
job currently and all the amazing thingsyou've done, which you have. I
saw your resume. It's very cool, and I know people don't like to
(01:55):
talk about themselves and their whole workhistory, but tell us a little bit
about yourself before you join as aexecutive director and all the cool things that
you've done before you're at your currentplace. Yeah. Yeah, So I
landed in Virginia because I got intoVirginia Tech and I wanted to study engineering.
And you know, it was reallyhard to decide because I loved so
many subjects growing up, but reallyloved that idea of problem solving and making
(02:23):
the world better for people through solutions, and engineering certainly does that. So
I did Industrial and systems engineering andundergrad and I got out of Tech and
I went to work for what wasthen Anderson Consulting what is now Accenture.
The telecommunications industry group was booming atthe time in the nineties. You know,
(02:45):
there's so much excitement with the ninetysix Tail Communications Act and everything before
and after that time. That reallyfueled a lot of activity in the technology
industry in our area. And soI was working with MCI as a client
for a while and found that tobe such a fascinating and interesting origin story
(03:07):
in and of itself. Did Ilearned how to program in cobol. I
feel like a dinosaur now, butyou know, I was sort of proud
of myself with then that. Youknow, I was able to do some
coding and do some design work.But then I thought, you know,
and this I also laugh at youknow, I don't want to pigeonhole myself
in it, which I again Ilaugh now, because you know, I
(03:28):
might have actually been a better pathjust to keep going on hindsight. But
I wanted, I really wanted tolook at organization's end to end. I
really liked the idea of running anorganization and end and decided to get my
MBA and so as a slight trader, I went to UVA after going to
(03:49):
Virginia Tech, and I got myMBA at UVA. But it was an
extraordinary experience because of the method ofstudy at UVA is all case study.
You're really thrown into all these differentsituations. It's a boot camp. I
mean, it's hard, hard work. Never worked harder. But when I
got out, I stayed in Telcom, went to MCI again. It was
(04:11):
exploding and I got to do somereally exciting things in branching out into new
markets, launching local telephone service rememberthe good old days of long distance in
local and MCI was really trying tobreak into that local market. Got to
testify at public utility hearings as anexpert on operational systems. During that period
(04:35):
of implementing the tele Communications Act,and it was. It was truly fascinating.
And then there were a number ofstartups forming. So I went to
work for what I called the startupon steroids and the telcom industry, at
least it was called Intelligent, andAlex Mandel came from AT and T to
around Intelligent, and so we hadsome titans of industry. But again it
was a startup, highly entrepreneurial,launching new markets all over the country.
(05:00):
Really really exciting until you know,Telcom sort of went bust and then it
was really not exciting. But youknow, you learn in different ways.
I mean, certainly the rise andfall of various companies and industries, the
good times and bad build your strengthas an executive and serve you well down
(05:21):
down the line in a variety ofways. So I really did appreciate those
days. And then I also becauseof what happened in the industry and because
of what I was witnessing, Ireally realized that, you know, I
needed to do something different in mylife. I needed to see the difference
(05:45):
that I would be making in people'slives in a more direct way. I
knew that, you know, ifI didn't show up for work the next
morning, people would still be usingtelephones. Yeah, it wasn't gonna make
a massive change, and so Ireally felt the calling to pivot into the
nonprofit industry. And you know,like in many things, you sort of
(06:08):
fall into different opportunities. One ofthose opportunities was serving on the board of
a small children's museum in the district. It doesn't exist by this name today,
but some listeners may remember Discovery CreekChildren's Museum. And that was my
first exposure to the museum industry.And I was really inspired by the founder,
(06:30):
the late su Seligman, and hervision for creating stewards of the natural
environment by raising our young generation tojust love nature. And so we did
a lot of amazing programs to getkids excited about the wonderful environment that we
live in and to grow up andtake care of it. And so I
(06:54):
loved that work. It was fascinatingto learn about the museum industry and exhibits
and education in an informal setting withmuseum educators versus you know, classroom teachers
were the only educators I'd met inmy years. I also got very involved
in the Junior League of Northern VirginiaAll Women Service Organization, amazing professionals from
(07:19):
all over the DMV area, andwe worked together to lived up the Northern
Virginia community. We focused on childrenwho were homeless and in shelters. We
worked in a lot of different settings. There's a lot of need, you
know, Northern Virginia and the entireDC area, but Northern Virginia especially,
(07:42):
you know, has a reputation ofhaving you know, everybody has everything they
need, right. You know,we're wealthy counties, et cetera, et
cetera, but there are a lotof people that need a hand. Here,
a lot of kids. We havethirty percent, maybe even a third
of our child population qualifies for freeand reduce lunch. Got a lot of
(08:03):
kids that don't have access and exposureto the kind of enriching educational experiences that
my kids were having. And soas I got involved in the Junior League,
I got to be a part ofa lot of projects, whether it
was helping outfit new homeless shelters withfamily rooms and learning rooms for children and
(08:26):
adults, or whether it was workingon issues around food insecurity and nutrition.
It was very much exposed to community. I also had the opportunity to be
involved in leadership, fair facts andlearn more about our county and the region
and again the need, the needthat is here. And so as the
(08:48):
opportunity came up to be a partof the founders of a new museum to
create the Children Science Center and ultimatelywhere we're going with Northern Virginia Science Center,
it combined all of those experiences inso many ways. So that's more
of my path. Well, thankyou for that. And you have a
(09:09):
passion obviously for all the things you'vedone and what you're doing currently, which
we're going to find out a littlebit more about now and what I want
to do first before we get intoprograms, events, and of course you
know how you can get there,how you can attend things that you offer
for the families of children, anybodythat would like to attend your two different
brands. What's the overall mission statementfor us? Yeah, so our mission
(09:31):
is to inspire a love of learningand STEM that is science, technology,
engineering, and math by creating uniqueopportunities to explore and create. Okay,
let's do this, din No,it's not going to be this easy,
but you know the brand very wellbecause you've been there for over ten plus
years, and I've seen You've seenthe evolution, the cool things that are
happening, and what's going to happenin the future. But if I were
(09:52):
to come to you, Ninia,I'm saying that nobody's ever heard of the
Northern Virginia Science Center or the Children'sScience Center. What would you say that
they do and that they both offer. Yeah, So we are all in
on exciting kids youth about learning,especially in the STEM arena, and we
(10:13):
do this in a very informal,hands on experiential way. So we provide
those experiences both at our site todaywe operate the Children's Science in Our Lab
at fair Oaks as well as beyondour walls. We go to schools and
libraries and sometimes festivals all across theNorthern Virginia area and we bring in hands
(10:35):
on STEM experiences. So we popup all over the area and it's really
all about getting kids excited. Wework a lot with teachers and educators.
They bring their classes to the Children'sScience in Our Lab, we push out
to their school a program called FamilyScience Night. So even by the name
of that you can tell we workwith teachers, but we also work with
(10:58):
families and parents are a really bigpart, important part, and caregivers and
grandparents. You know, everyone ina child's orbit are important enablers and accessors
and supporters and cheerleaders of their child'slearning. And so we love to make
family learning happen. We love toprovide experiences where people can be all together
(11:22):
and really be exploring the cool thingsthat are STAMP. I love that.
So I'm super curious if you couldtake us behind the curtain a little bit,
because there are so many exhibits,there's so many different things that you
can bring in and then another onecomes in in and out, in and
out, and all the different thingsthat are available. How is that all
decided? And how many people doyou work with? And I know you
(11:43):
have a team, but if anybodyknows about executive directors, folks, it's
busy three sixty five twenty four seven. It never ends. It is a
very hard job, but also veryrewarding and very passionate, as you can
hear the need he is. Butwith all that said, how do you
decide in the end about how thingscome in and then how they go out
and the new one comes back here? Wow? Yeah, Well you're right,
(12:03):
I mean it's a team effort andthere are great professionals involved in this
effort, and it's often a verycross collaborative, cross functional effort. So
we have our team. We havean education team, but we also have
a community engagement team that it's helpingus think about the community that we're serving
and reaching all in that community.We have our communications team. There are
(12:26):
really experts and how we package andpromote things. We brought a lot of
sort of the fundamentals of business,and my work Intel Communications was very much
around product development, and so webrought a lot of those product development kind
of principles to the work that wedo in the museum where we're thinking about
the various ps and the packaging andthe pricing and all across the museum industry.
(12:52):
We are really trying to connect withthe public and the way they want
to be connected with. So partof that design, as well as sort
of vetting and packaging, is reallyabout, you know, how do we
have the hook? You know,what does everybody really love? Where people
think is really cool? You know, what's something they're really curious about?
(13:15):
And you want exhibits, you wantprograms, and you want you know,
all of your communications to really havethat fun hook and so, you know,
sometimes it's it's little things like welearned early on. We have this
great experience at the Children's Science inour lab that everyone loves. It's called
(13:35):
Experiment Bar, and so you pullup a stool at the bar and you
order an experiment off the menu,and we rotate those experiments so there's something
new each time. We have oureducators when we open the bar, and
when we first opened the lab said, oh, you know, our name
should be stem Tenders, you know, because we're tending the bar. That's
(13:56):
crazy. So so the you know, the Experiment Bar activity. We also
create an ebook. Amazon donating kindlesfrom the beginning and they continue to support
us, and we create an ebookfor every experiment to scaffold the process,
right, because it has to besomething that people can really a want to
do, like pick it off themenu, you know it, does it
look cool and compelling, does ithave a great you know name? Right,
(14:20):
It's it's basic marketing, but alsosomething that is fun to actually do.
Put your hands on too. Weget to use beakers, do we
get to use graduated cylinders? Dowe get to use you know, make
stuff you know, is it?You know, and when it comes to
kids is a messy check we wantmessy parents would rather have the mess with
us, right, yes, andteachers too, right. So so a
lot of those things are not sounlike you know, the for profits world
(14:45):
consumer packaging, right, does ithave a cool name. But one of
the funny things I'll share with youis that early on we discovered I mean,
this is not you're not going tobe shocked, but everyone loves slime,
right, Yes, they're crazy aboutwhy. And I think we hit
the slime wave, or maybe wecreated the slime wave, because we literally
have come up with like dozens ofdifferent kinds of slime to have at the
(15:07):
experiment bar from magnetic slime to youknow, I don't know, you know,
snowland slime. I mean, we'vewe've come up with every kind of
scenario. But what we discovered prettyearly on is that when kids would come
back, if there was not slimeon the menu, there were tears.
And so you know, you sortof have to listen to your audience.
And that's that's from the grown maneverybody. That's all the dads, those
(15:31):
dads. But in any case,you know, it is about being really
responsive to the audience and listening,and so that's a big part of the
way that we put together experiences.And so for the big science center that
we're building, the Northern Virginia ScienceCenter, we had a lot of community
(15:52):
conversations over the years and community designsessions, and we brought in the pros
and we have an amazing museum industrywith people that specialize and interactive hands on
exhibits that really wow people. Andso, you know, put everyone together,
the community, the designers, andyou can come up with some just
really great concepts, fun concepts,and you know, and the sky's the
(16:15):
limit. And I think the designprocess for the big science centers has been
really rewarding experience. And now wehave a beautiful design that everyone can actually
see and fly through the future ScienceCenter on our website for the new science
Center, novaside dot org. Youknow, Nini, one of my big
takeaways from what you just talked aboutis the fun in science. And I'm
(16:37):
going to date myself a little bit, but you know, between Beekman's World
and Bill ny the Science Guy,and Neil de Grasse Tyson and all the
science geeks that we watch on televisionover the last thirty years. They brought
the fun and the entertainment how coolscience can be. And I can tell
with just a few of the exhibitsyou've talked about about the fun you can
as a family at your place,which I really love. Then it's not
(17:00):
boring and it's not way above everybodysaid, you're having a good time while
you're learning some really cool things.So I appreciate you doing that. I
know that Launch the Future campaign isa really big deal. And anytime you're
talking about a nonprofit, especially whenyou have so many exhibits coming in and
out, then money is a necessity. So if you could just talk a
little bit about fundraising, your campaignpartners and just that important piece, because
(17:21):
I know that is also a fulltime job in itself. Oh yes,
yes, it's when we started thiseffort, and it's been for me in
about eighteen years, you know,I think the organization was founded just before
that, about you know, notquite twenty years ago. We really thought,
hey, you know all these otherbig cities of you know, children's
museums and science centers, sometimes multiplesof them. You know, this can't
(17:45):
be that hard, you know,we need it we've got a large population.
But it turned out to be quitea challenge. And as we have
set out on this journey over somany years, we learned a lot along
the way, and we realized throughfeasibility studies and really you know, founding
(18:06):
the pavement, that we couldn't dothis just as a small band of you
know, concerned community leaders, right. It was going to take some serious
partnerships. And we were very fortunateto be able to put together an amazing
and powerful public private partnership with theCommonwealth of Virginia and with Louden County and
(18:29):
with a developer in Louden at Kincoraright off Route twenty eight, just north
of Dell's Airport. And so thepartnerships have been so important because we have
this gift of land, but yougot to be able to put a building
on it. And the project isover one hundred million dollar project, and
so this is a heavy lift fora small nonprofit. But when you bring
(18:55):
in big partners, you bring inthe Commonwealth and the Science Museum of Virginia,
you bring in know how resources,you know, a lot of great
things can happen. And so weare in we're in a great place in
the process, but the work iscertainly not done. We are in the
midst of our private fundraising campaign andin that large project, we have about
(19:19):
five million to go. So it'sgoing to be there. You know,
we're going to build it. We'regoing to start building it in twenty twenty
four, which is super exciting.But we are still at a point where
we may not be able to buildall the exhibits right, we may not
be able to make it as greatas we have planned and as our community
is envisioned if we don't close outthis campaign. And so we are definitely
(19:44):
still at a point where we're makingnew friends and we're asking, you know,
some of the companies and families thatfirst got us started in the early
days to really help us lift upthis project and make it a priority,
because it's not every day, it'snot even every year, every decade or
every lifetime that you get to createa resource that just simply doesn't exist and
(20:10):
until you know, you put itthere. And so I think that's been
really compelling for everyone is there's away for everyone to be a part of
it. Not all of us canbe those title partners that that you know,
can give a million dollars to aproject like this, Sometimes people you
know it can help in so manydifferent ways. And I think that's the
(20:32):
beauty of this is that we've reallywanted to make this about our entire community,
that it's really for the community,and it's by the community, and
whether it's volunteerism, whether it isbeing able to make gifts to the project
pro bono support. We've had amazingpro bono support over the years. Everyone
(20:55):
can be a part of it.We rely heavily on volunteers. We needed
volunteers. I don't want to sayevery day of the week, but yeah,
pretty much every day of the week. We operate seven days a week.
We're beyond our walls out across thecommunity in schools and libraries, and
we're at our facility in Fairfax,and we need people who who love working
(21:18):
with families and children, working withthe public that are excited about science and
technology, engineering and math. There'sso many ways to plug in. So
I really think it's for everyone,but I appreciate that it isn't for everyone.
But we do hope that people willbe curious about this project and I
want to help in some way.Grace great and small, there's always a
(21:44):
way to make a difference. Well, great, and we're going to give
the website hours of operation where they'relocated. A lot of our savaging listeners
have already done that as they listento this, but we're going to do
that for everybody at the end.But Nini, what I like to do
at the end of our series hereand I really enjoyed our conversation, and
I can't tell you how much weappreciate your valuable time because we know how
busy you are. But I'd lovefor you to give our listeners just maybe
a few takeaways when it comes tothe Northern Virginia Science Center and also the
(22:07):
Children's Science Center, just some takeawaysthat you would like to leave everybody with
as we close out our conversation.I think the key takeaways for the Science
Center and engaging with us is thatwe are delivering a mission today. So
you don't have to wait. Youdon't have to wait to bring your family,
you don't have to wait to volunteer, you don't have to wait to
(22:30):
be a partner. And there's waysto support our mission today in a myriad
of ways, whether it's volunteerism orfunds or what have you, and then
we have our vision for tomorrow.This vision is about to come to full
fruition. We are getting started withConsurrection in twenty four is going to be
(22:53):
rising out of the ground. Andit's also not too late to to get
involved and make sure that we buildthis resource to be the best it can
be for our community. And then, last, but not least, we
are evolving as a science center.We have been a children's science center.
(23:15):
We've been focused on pre K throughtwelve, working with children and youth as
they grow up in our community.But at Northern Virginia Science Center, we
will be for people of all agesand we're not going to stop working with
our children. That is our breadand butter and our youth and allowing them
(23:36):
to be young leaders that support themission. But we will also be a
place for adults to come and getexcited about the amazing things that are happening
in our region. We will haveprograms that are specifically for adults and that
might be connecting with amazing scientists atNIH or Howard Hughes or Technolo from some
(24:00):
of our big tech companies. There'sgoing to be so many ways to benefit
us you know, a citizen andconsumer of STEM as well as a champion
and supporter of STEM and community.And if I may add slime for all
the dads. Okay, so don'twant for all the dead, well we'll
set you up. Okay, let'sdo this for everybody. Let's give some
(24:21):
website information. If you'd like togive social media channels, you're able to
do that too. Hours of operation, where you're located. Once again,
on our listeners are probably googled,you have big time. But let's give
that to everybody. Yeah. Sowe have two websites today, the Children's
Science Center and everything about the childnScience Center Lab and all of our outreach
programs you can learn about at childsidot org. And our website for the
(24:45):
Future Science Center, where you cansee the amazing fly through and learn about
how to become a partner, isat novasi dot org. We have Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn channels orChildren's Science Center and another set for
Northern Virginia Science Center. So definitelycome visit us online or on any of
(25:11):
these channels. On Facebook, youcan find us at Children's Science Center or
at NOVASAI. On Instagram, youcan find us at child Size Center lab
or at NOVASAI. On Twitter,you can find us at CHILDSI or at
Novasai Center. On LinkedIn, you'llfind us at Children's Science Center or Northern
Virginia Science Center. We hope tosee you there. Outstanding well, Nini,
(25:33):
I really enjoyed a conversation, folks. I want to let you also
know that we just had the tipof the iceberg of all the amazing things
that both of the science centers canoffer for adults and families, or by
yourself, who are you with orif you're with a big group, it
really is a lot of fun.It's educational, but I think the big
takeaway from Niini, folks is there'sa lot of fun there too and a
lot of learning, which is greatfor everybody. So thank you so much
(25:56):
for this. I just want towish you continue success. I know it's
hard work, but I can alsotell it's really rewarding to you because there's
so many people that get so muchfrom you and your team that offers them
to be better human beings and tohave a lot of fun and to get
back to the community. And who'salso very generous as well too. So
thank you for your time and Thankyou so much for joining us on CEOs
you should know. Thank you.Our community partner, M and T Bank
(26:18):
supports CEOs you should know is partof their ongoing commitment to building strong communities,
and that starts by backing the businesseswithin them. As a Bank for
communities, M and T believes indedicating time, talent, and resources to
help local businesses thrive because when businessessucceed, our communities succeed.
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