Following is a conversation with Founder and Senior Explorer Gabrielle Lyon. Gabe recently transitioned out of her position as Executive Director, which she held for most of Project Exploration’s existence. To read more about the evolution of Project Exploration’s leadership team, read an interview with new CEO Paige Ponder.

Josh Fox: Can you tell us about the background behind the decision for you to transition out of being Executive Director and for Project Exploration to hire a CEO?

Gabrielle Lyon: When I cofounded Project Exploration back in 1999 with Paul, I never anticipated, or planned, or imagined that I would ever be the person running it forever. In fact, one of the core ideas I had was to build a healthy organization that was not dependent on me. That was part of the DNA of how I approached the work of starting a nonprofit. So the idea to do succession planning, and build that into our Strategic Plan happened quite a long time before we started the search process.

Sometime in 2008 I started feeling with some certainty that the organization was viable on its own. People were funding programs. The people running programs were not people I had trained. I sat down and spoke with our executive committee and said, “I think we need to be thinking about succession planning and about me not being the executive director.” We developed a job search, and in April of this year we opened up the CEO search. As the search committee, led by Bob Rosenberg, got down to some finalists I had the chance to talk with them, and Paige was a fantastic fit for us. A good match for the organization. Great rapport with all of us that are going to get to work with her. And amongst a very, very strong, robust pool of candidates throughout, Paige was clearly going to be the best choice for us. And she said, “Yes!”

JF: What about Paige made you think, personally, that she was the right person? Why is she such a good fit?

GL: Paige is not only a great fit for us in general, but also specifically for us at this moment.

There’s a certain set of core beliefs about kids’ capacity, a certain set of experiences that Paige knows first-hand because she’s worked in Chicago Public Schools, because she’s been most concerned about students on the margins, because she’s been a principal in the Bronx, because she’s looked deeply (not just at a student level, but at a system level) into what makes a difference in the life trajectory of a young person. She’s a very good fit for the real work we’re trying to figure out: How do we serve more kids? How do we do that in the ways that have clearly become the hallmarks of our model? (Relationship-based. Access to scientists. Meaningful work. Students’ interests shaping what they do, and how we do it with them.) How do we take that approach and reach twice the number of kids? How do we that in a way that builds out content-based and experiential pathways into different fields and disciplines? You know, how do we do that in the Project Exploration way? She’s bringing a deep, meaningful, and valuable set of experiences to help us think through that.

But, it’s also important to have the right person for this moment in time. We’re hiring our first CEO. I’m the founder and I’m still sticking around. We have a board that is very much reinventing and inventing itself, and a staff that’s extremely aspirational and hard working, and is growing and maturing also. Paige’s sensibilities, her warmth, her self-confidence, her comfort with ambiguity, her natural inclination to be a learner and very team-oriented are a really good fit for what we need. I think Paige really has a high comfort level with trying to figure things out, as opposed to seeing that ambiguity as threatening. As opposed to requiring her to have the answer and the only answer. It’s a learning organization, we’re collaborative, we have high respect for each other. We don’t know everything and we know we don’t know everything. And we want to get better at what we do. She’s going to help us do all those things.

JF: Can you give me some idea of what your role is going to be and what you’re going to be doing?

GL: Yeah. You know, I appreciate the question. I think part of developing the job description for the new CEO absolutely required me to work with the board. And I actually sat down for a number of sessions with an executive coach to really work through what my role would be. Even what my title would be. I think there were more sleepless nights and emails back and forth with our current board chair, Bob Rosenberg, about my title than just about anything else. (laughs) Amongst the possible titles were things like “Czarina,” and other things like “Chief Education Officer”. Just lots of possibilities. We landed on Founder and Senior Explorer, and I think that embodies the spirit of what this work is for me. It’s about exploring the education landscape. It’s about making discoveries and coming back to report on them. It’s about connecting our work to movements and education issues where we can make a contribution, where we can learn, where our voice is going to be very important. So that’s the spirit of this.

Functionally, I have a couple of very specific projects I’m carving out right now, and I think this role will evolve over time. I’m really moving out of the day to day operations, and moving into a role that is primarily strategic, in terms of what the organization is doing. Looking at more of a national landscape, and more of the systemic connections for us.

Here are the projects that I’ve lined up for the next twelve months, that are very, very specific. One is that I’d really like to see Project Exploration understand the landscape of STEM and out-of-school time in the Chicagoland area. So, we’re trying to do an initiative to map that landscape in partnerships with folks who have been chewing on this issue as well, from different angles. Ideally, we will get some support and produce a kind of snapshot this spring of what programs are available where, who’s providing those programs, and some sense of who’s participating in those programs. We’re going to use that snapshot to do a regional convening, hopefully in late May, to say, “This is the picture.” What do we take away from it? How does this picture help those of us who are very engaged in these issues organize ourselves for a greater impact, and what is the impact we’d like to see, collectively? That’s kind of field building, it’s kind of like organizing.

The second project is that… You know I used to run the programs, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a chance to teach, and be with a group of students, and help work with them through a passage, some sort of journey. This summer I’ll be piloting a science media communications program. You know, it’s everything that I most love in terms of working with kids. We’ll be doing writing, we’ll be looking at media, we’ll be having a chance for students to work with mentors. Basically, it’ll be ten to a dozen high school students. They’ll learn how to blog. We’ll look at a lot of science in the media and think about what the messages are. They’ll have a writing coach. They’ll get put on assignment, and cover some programs and write about them. And then, as the program comes to a conclusion they’ll pick one or two of their pieces and actually polish them up and publish them. I’m really excited about that. It’s digital media. It’s making full use of the spectrum of technology. And it’s a way to move some of what we’ve been doing in an introductory level with students, with the writing and the blogging, and really taking that to the next level. So, I’m super excited about that.

Finally, my big project is to write a book about these kids’ experiences. Try to highlight what education can and should be. We live in a world where education is synonymous with school. Everything that happens here at Project Exploration tells us that education is not synonymous with school. School has a role to play, and non-school education has an incredible value. For the kids in our programs, it’s these non-school “educational” experiences that will make or break their life trajectory. There’s no question about it. We see it over and over and over again. With students like De’Andre, and Demethia who just sent me a message on Facebook. And Kendra Smith. We have so many students where what we’re seeing is that school is necessary, but not sufficient. And the chance to tell some of those stories, and do it in a way that’s illustrative, and compelling, and interesting to read about for an audience that maybe never thought about picking up an “education” book, is something I’d really like to do.

So, those are my projects when we get through this transition. Plus, anything anybody wants to suggest on the blog that I should spend my time on. Staff not included. (laughs)

JF: Can you give us your vision for what Project Exploration looks like in ten years?

GL: I think we’re kind of a beacon for what’s possible for kids. We’re the go-to place for anyone who wants to have adventure with a purpose. We’re a place where you can have extraordinary experiences with and through science.

But we’re also a place where scientists who want to have meaningful opportunities to give back to the community, to be involved with the community, share their work with non-scientists, go. We’re a place where school buses are dropping off kids, and when those kids come to Project Exploration they’re learning from scientists and with our students and alumni. We’re a place where people from rural towns and big cities come to see what it looks like to do great science. To see what that looks like, and what that feels like, and bring some of those lessons home. Maybe we’re a kind of colony of lots of interesting things going on for young people. Where Project Exploration is an anchor, but not the only one. A kind of place where a kid comes and hangs out, and as they get interested in media there’s somebody quite close by that we send them to. Physically quite close by, not across town. And they go do some media. There’s this kind of pollination happening. So, if we were like a garden, there would be hummingbirds coming by and tasting all the different nectars and trying to decide which one their favorite is. Part of it is that Project Exploration is the place that’s made the ground fertile for all those different flowers and plants to grow, but they do their own thing. And we’re just a part of what that garden’s about. We create a place that’s really by, about, and for kids becoming whoever it is they’re going to become.

At the heart of it will be access to this very peculiar world called science, a place that tells most kids, “I’m not for you.” There are so many reasons that happens. But there’s an equity issue around science where kids who are poor, kids who struggle in school, kids who struggle with English, they don’t get invited in. In fact, if anything they’re told, “Move on down the road. This is a one way street. This is not for you.” We’re going to flip that on its head. And when you come to Project Exploration you’re going to see kids of every color, of every stripe, doing extraordinary things. It’s going to send a message out that anybody can do this, and that this is a way to experience the world.

JF: Okay, one more question. Can you think of your favorite memory of the last eleven years? Just pick one?

GL: That’s a really difficult question. You’re going to make me cry. I don’t know if I can answer just one favorite. I have all these little patches of memories. None of which, in and of themselves, are some huge thing.

I remember, we had a senior celebration and a girl named Nicole came with her mom, and they were a little late, and they said, “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was just registering for community college. I didn’t really decide until last week I was going to go.” That was amazing.

Nick is another. I tend to have antennae for the kids who are problematic. Nick is a kid who was constantly in programs, but just along for the ride. He would come and crack jokes, and be late, and drag his feet. “Do I have to do this?” And then he was at the orientation for our summer forensics program, and he came up to me after the orientation and said, “Miss Gabe, I need to talk to you.” “What’s up, Nick?” “I’m not going to be here the last day, and I’m concerned, what should I tell my team?” Just unbelievable. You know, that meant that he cared about his impact on other people, that he realized that the choices he made affected other people, that he was going to take his work seriously. That he cared about the quality of the product. All of those kinds of things in that little conversation.

Those are just little snippets. But those are the kinds of things that are incredible memories. There are lots of them. And they are possible because we don’t just see kids once. I would not have that memory of Nick if he had just come to one thing. And not only if he hadn’t come back, what if we hadn’t encouraged him to come back? Or been welcoming of him? What if we had pushed him out, or said, “You’re not serious about this, so this is probably not the place for you.” But we’re here. We tell the kids we’re in it for the long haul. We tell them once they’re in they’re in, and it’s true. When they leave they come back and we’re still happy to see them.

They’re all little things like that. A great memory has yet to be made, and that’s seeing Kaitlin Judkins get off the plane in Niamey, Niger and realize I was with her when she climbed her first mountain. I was with her on her first airplane trip. Now she’s traveling overseas to the middle of the Sahara Desert to be a science ambassador, and what she writes will be read by thousands and thousands of people all across the country. She was a little, shy girl in a middle school down the street. And now she’s going to go across the ocean.

So, those are amazing things. Without Project Exploration, I don’t know.

JF: Well, this isn’t a question but I want to say that in my time here I’ve seen you mostly in the role of being the leader of the organization, often in an administrative capacity. The one thing I really appreciate about watching you is that whenever there’s a chance for you to be involved with students, that’s when I see you be the happiest. And it’s been really positive to have the leader of the organization be still so connected to things on that level. It’s really great to hear you talk about one of your three big projects getting back to that, and working with students, and being in the room with them.

GL: I’m excited. It’s good. It’s good for all of us to be with kids. Thank you, I do think it’s exciting, too.