Washington is one of the states featured in the Linking Leaders Community for Change Book. Click the image to go to the Linking Leaders book main page and learn more about Washington's Linking Leaders program activities.

Business, education and policy leaders from the state of Washington participated in a NASA/NASSMC Linking Leaders Conference in 1997. While that conference did not result in the formation of a coalition, NASSMC maintains contact with interested parties in the state, and NASA in-state activities associated with the linking leaders program have continued.

NASSMC initiated Linking Leaders in 1996 to support NASA’s Implementation Plan for Education and to promote coalition-building work in the states. Specifically, the program provides resources and opportunities for state-level leadership groups to collaborate with NASA and its affiliates to align NASA resources with the state’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education agenda. The program is also designed to strengthen – or build the commitment to establish – a broad-based coalition to address the state’s STEM needs. Linking Leaders has revealed and underscored the complementary agendas, the overlapping constituencies, and the power of a Coalition-NASA-NASSMC partnership in catalyzing and focusing STEM change efforts at the state level. Linking Leaders activities and NASA collaboration will be structured to accommodate the specific needs of a coalition at any stage in its development.

For information about all of NASSMC's programs and projects, visit www.nassmc.org/projects.html.

For more information on forming a state coalition or applying to the Linking Leaders program, send an email message to info@nassmc.org.