As I make final preparations to attend the National Space Symposium, I find myself reflecting on the Space Academy journey, from inception to today. In its infancy, Space Academy was the passion project of myself and co-founder, Christopher Allen.
Believe it or not, Christopher and I have known each other since we were teenagers, remaining close friends throughout the years. While our careers and lives took very different paths, they ended up combining at the perfect time to tackle a problem I had been observing for a decade within both the government and commercial sides of the Space Industry…. A lack of quality training and professional development opportunities. Based on our combined experiences and expertise, we knew how to help fix this problem.
Within the DoD there was only one formal joint schoolhouse for Space, which almost exclusively does in-person courses that cannot provide the throughput needed across the military service branches, unable to meet demand or effectively be scaled. On the commercial side, training or professional development were poor quality, lacking in standardization, and not designed around skill development or performance outcomes.
And so… Space Academy was born, with a focus on developing world-classes digital learning experiences for the Government and Commercial sides of the space ecosystem. As the company grew, we began adding other aspects of the Space Industry’s human element including job placement, professional development and standardizing skill requirements… a complete workforce solution for growing space companies.
Over the course of the first 18-months we developed our multi award-winning Space Professional Program and began adding our early adopters. We also received the Space Foundation Certification for Education and were selected as the official training and education partner to the Keystone Space Collaborative.
