Board of Directors
Wesley
Fondal, Jr. is the executive director of one of the Department of
Defense Science and Technology Academies Reinforcing Basic Aviation and
Space Exploration (STARBASE) programs. The program seeks to involve all
students, but especially at-risk students, in learning and applying
science, technology and math. In this capacity, He is very involved in
making this civil/military partnership effective and keeping the
collaboration between the military, education and business communities
involved in meeting the goals of the program and the needs of the
students.
Mr. Fondal responsibilities include designing and overseeing the
implementation of the curricula of the STARBASE ROBINS program. The
program is in partnership with several school districts and private
schools. He is also responsible for budget planning and analysis,
grant-writing, civic and military liaison, program procurement and
overall program management and supervision and he is instrumental in
data collection of the STARBASE ROBINS program for the Annual Report to
Congress on the STARBASE program. Mr. Fondal has taken the program to
new heights by introducing programming for many students in robotics and
computer science. He is closely associated with FIRST (For Inspiration
and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics and FIRST Lego
League, serving on the Georgia FIRST Peachtree Region Advisory Board and
hosting one of the Georgia FIRST Lego League Qualifiers.
Mr. Fondal has a degree in biology from Dillard University, a Masters
degree in Cell Biology from the University of the Incarnate Word and
attended and trained in basic science research at the University of
Missouri-Columbia in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Upon
graduation from Dillard University, he served as a U.S. Senate Intern
for then Senator J. Bennett Johnston. He has been in the science
education field for over twelve years, teaching in the public school,
college and distance learning arenas. He is concurrently adjunct
professor of Biology, Anatomy and Physiology; Microbiology and nutrition
at Georgia Military College and also at the University of Phoenix
Online.
He served as chairman of the NSTA Aerospace Programs Advisory Board. He
has also served as grant review for the U.S. Department of Education,
the Corporation for National Service and the National Science
Foundation. Mr. Fondal is an active member of the Advisory Board for the
Peachtree Regional FIRST Robotics Competition and plays a key role in
the Georgia FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition.
He loves spending time with his three sons in which he gets to live his
science education philosophy, which is that every young person can have
the world open up to them through science and math education. Mr. Fondal
strongly believes that a collaboration, such as the Triangle Coalition,
is necessary to compel those who make decisions to give us what we know
is necessary for the children we serve.
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