THE MAKING OF HIDDEN PIONEERS STORY- Founded in 2017 Corona, Ca.

THE MAKING OF HIDDEN PIONEERS STORY- Founded in 2017

Corona, Ca. After my sister called me from my hometown of Cincinnati Ohio to ask if I had seen the movie Hidden Figures yet I said no and she told me to go watch it. She called me back the following week to see if I had watched it yet and if I liked it. I told her no, not yet due to my busy schedule and she said “Boy you better go watch that movie. It's about our cousin Katherine Johnson. I still did not really understand just yet and took a few more days to watch it at the AMC Movie theatre down the freeway from my house. I really liked the movie, and it brought tears to my eyes knowing that it was my “blood”. The actors were amazing, and the story line was put together very well. I used to watch movies all the time back in the day, so I know what makes a good film and this was one great one! On a scale from 1 to 10 it was a

9 1/2 in my book. If you want to know what makes a great movie, ask me in person face to face. I know the answer. Hidden Figures | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX - YouTube

Now the journey begins as I was excited to know more about this lady I never met or knew did this kind of work at NASA. I only thought of Astronauts and rockets when it came to space travel. Besides, nobody really talks about the organization and what they really do. One week after watching the movie they were interviewing the head NASA Historian Bill Barry about the human computers who worked at NASA. They kept flashing his name at the bottom of the screen giving me time to write it down to look him up and reach out. God gave me another sign and I followed it to receive an email back that he would call me. He did call me and we had a good talk about my cousin that he knew well and liked very much, which made me proud of her. He put me in contact with two other men who worked in the Education Outreach department from Langley VA where my cousin worked for 34 years. Today they have a building named after her: The $23-million, 37,000-square-foot (3,437 square-meter) structure is consolidating four Langley data centers. The building incorporates energy- NASA Langley’s Katherine Johnson Computational Research Facility Officially Opens - NASA

I had the opportunity to visit her for a 100th birthday celebration in West Virgina with my sisters. It was a genuinely nice weekend as I spent some time one on one with her

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alone. She was all about the NASA Team and our country. Her bright blue eyes and snow-white hair showed her grace and wisdom. I was immensely proud of her and told her that several times. It was a blessing to say the least. Godspeed.

My new contact Dan Cherry agreed to help me with Education outreach and mentored me through the world of NASA to get material needed to teach others at all levels. We did several events in the classroom, Zoom meetings, in-person visits and displays directly from NASA headquarters. I remember one time several big boxes bags, stickers, pens, booklets, and posters showed up at my school in Long Beach. It was like Christmas with lots of good surprises. You can still find some NASA meatball stickers on doors and windows at that school today! We had a lot of fun at Cabrillo High School in Long Beach with NASA support: all schools should have that as it makes a big difference. I was able to do things in Los Angeles also when I transferred as a Transportation and Technology Teacher for two years. My four years teaching gave me a clear understanding of what the needs are in this country regarding STEM education across the board. We’ve got some work to do ahead to close the gap in our knowledge of NASA & space travel.

I had a marketing team called the International Allstars for 10 years in the Automotive industry setting trends in the Lifestyle market. Education was not our focus, but people did look up to us because of the sponsors and support we had. Cool cars, uniforms, new products, friendly people and VIP places to go! Those were the good old days before social media came around which changed the game and world.

The car industry crashed, and sponsors pulled out forcing me to get some TV coverage to get more or keep the ones we had. I took a chance and listened to others about developing a TV show of our own. I did see Dancing with the Stars and watched that series for a couple years before coming up with the name "Drifting with the Stars". That did not really work well causing me to spend more money than I expected or had. Companies, people and sponsors made verbal as well written commitments but backed out after it was too late for me. Since the show did not air yet and we did a time buy it was on us for the loss of income we put into it. Lesson learned but I did pick up a great deal about TV and movie production as to what and what not to do again. I took a break from the Allstars and shut it down with mixed emotions at best.

After chasing around celebrities and people that I thought could and would help us, the search for funding began all over again. This time because I was now a new high school teacher in the auto industry, I thought car companies would help me get things started. Well, that did not happen and still today there’s not enough support at the high school level. This made me want to change that and my passion grew to start a new team to get more people who cared about the closing of shop and trade classes. Because of the movie Hidden Figures and my cousin, it came to me that our team’s name should be called Hidden Pioneers. God also helped me think about staying humble and behind the scenes doing the work regardless of how much money we have that covers the Hidden Pioneers. We are also the trend setters and trail blazers that lead the way and give back to others (our country). These are Pioneers. So, there you have it, we are "Hidden

Pioneers".