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The Honorable Andrea Seastrand
andrea.seastrand@californiaspaceauthority.org
3201 Airpark Dr., Ste. 204
Santa Maria, CA 93455
805-349 2633, ext. 113
The Honorable Andrea Seastrand serves as Executive Director of the California Space Authority (CSA), a statewide non-profit corporation. She brings extensive knowledge of both the federal and state legislative processes as well as the vision and drive to ensure California's success as a leader in the highly competitive, international space enterprise marketplace.
Mrs. Seastrand was a leader in the inception of The California Space and Technology Alliance (CSTA), serving as its first and only Executive Director from February 1997 until April 2001. Through her visionary leadership, CSTA grew into the current CSA, an organization focused on all four domains of California's diverse space enterprise community: industry, government, academia, and workforce. CSA provides voice, visibility and a competitive edge for California's space enterprise, and it has been designated by the State of California as California's official spaceport authority since April 2001. Recognizing the value of collaborative strategic visioning, in 1998 Mrs. Seastrand oversaw the development of the country's first, true, statewide, collaborative strategic space enterprise plan. That plan was updated in 2004 and again in 2007 with the development of the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan. CSA is facilitating its implementation.
The development and implementation of the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan elevated CSA to a position of national thought leadership. Such recognition led Mrs. Seastrand to be invited in early 2006 to participate in the U.S. Air Force Civic Leaders Group. The Air Force Civic Leaders Group is comprised of leaders from over 30 communities nationwide. The group meets regularly to strengthen partnerships between bases, communities, leaders and senior Air Force leadership.
In February 2008, Mrs. Seastrand was appointed to chair the Aerospace Advisory Committee, which reports to Lt. Governor John Garamendi's Commission on Economic Development. The bipartisan Commission advances policies that promise the development of new, high-wage jobs, and which will build a sustainable economy for California's future. The seven-member Aerospace Advisory Committee will provide the Commission with information on the status of aerospace business in the state, identify key challenges to the industry's growth, and offer recommendations for solutions.
Under Mrs. Seastrand's direction, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded CSA a $15 million Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant. The WIRED initiative is a major component of President George Bush's competitiveness agenda, unveiled during the 2006 State of the Union Address. Under this initiative, CSA leads a 13 county economic region comprising the "California Innovation Corridor" with more than 60 participants. This effort consists of increasing entrepreneurship, supporting manufacturing value chain and supplier competitiveness, and fostering accelerated development of an innovation-oriented technical workforce.
In recognition of the value of CSA's role, Congress encouraged CSA to establish an annual conference focusing on California's international leadership as a space faring state. In response, CSA built on its first annual 2004 SpotBeam Awards Dinner with a two-day conference and awards dinner highlighting the state's space assets through the innovation, infrastructure, and intellectual capital of the space enterprise community. CSA convened the Transforming Space Conference and SpotBeam Awards Dinner in 2005. It is now recognized as an annual CSA event.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Mrs. Seastrand in 2004 to serve as one of 20 members on the Governor's statewide Council on Base Support and Retention. The Council worked closely with the Governor's Office of Military and Aerospace Support on Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) strategy, recommending actions to optimize the retention and realignment of military installations, missions and commands in California. The final votes of the Base Closure Commission confirmed the merits of the council's strategy and the value of the collaborative efforts of the state.
As a former US Congresswoman, Mrs. Seastrand led space support efforts at the federal level with the introduction of the National Spaceport Act of 1995. While in Congress, she served on the Committee on Science and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. As a Member of the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1994, Mrs. Seastrand successfully authored legislation that created the California Spaceport Authority, created sales tax exemptions on launches, and created CORTA - a central coast effort to support space and technology efforts that ultimately evolved into today's CSA.
Mrs. Seastrand is presently an alternate California delegate to the Aerospace States Association (ASA) and a member in Women In Aerospace (WIA), the Air Force Association (AFA), the Navy League; and she serves on the College of Engineering's Dean's Advisory Council at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
Mrs. Seastrand was born and raised in Chicago and graduated from DePaul University. She raised two children on California's Central Coast with her late husband, Eric Seastrand, who was a Member of the California State Assembly from 1982 through 1990. Mrs. Seastrand currently resides in Grover Beach, California.
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