Andrea Seastrand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section reads like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view per Wikipedia policy. Mark blatant advertising for speedy deletion with {{db-spam}}. (help, talk)

The Honorable Andrea Seastrand, former member of Congress. Image courtesy 104th Congress Pictorial Directory

The Honorable Andrea Seastrand (born August 5, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois) was a Republican member of the House of Representatives. Seastrand was elected in 1994 to the 104th Congress from the California 22nd district in the Santa Barbara area congressional seat vacated by Michael Huffington in his bid for the U.S. Senate.

She currently serves as Executive Director of the California Space Authority, a statewide non-profit corporation. Mrs. Seastrand is also California's delegate to the Aerospace States Association (ASA) and both a member of Women In Aerospace (WIA) and the Air Force Association (AFA). 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 enterprise space marketplace.

[edit] Early life

Born and raised in Chicago and graduated from DePaul University, Mrs. Seastrand 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, when he died in office after a battle with cancer. Shortly after the death of her husband, Mrs. Seastrand established the Eric Seastrand Memorial Youth Fund, using her skills at grassroots political organizing for non-political community-outreach projects. Her fund has benefitted dozens of students by providing scholarships, supporting 4-H programs, buying a wheelchair to enable a child to participate in the Special Olympics, and supplying train tickets for grade-school field trips. Mrs. Seastrand was then encouraged to run for her husband's remaining term of office and won, serving in the Assembly from 1990 to 1994.

As a state legislator, Seastrand successfully pushed through commercial spaceport legislation, which helped to create a California Space Authority and the first commercial spaceport in the nation at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

[edit] Congress

After her election to Congress, Mrs. Seastrand led space support efforts with the introduction of the National Spaceport Act of 1995. The bill would create a single agency for oversight and regulation, and permit tax-exempt bonds to fund the conversion of obsolete military bases into spaceports that would require no direct federal expenditures. The intent of the National Spaceport Act was to help the U.S. compete in the global market for commercial space launches, and create high-tech jobs in a depressed area severely hurt by base closures and declining military expenditures. While in Congress, she secured positions on the two committees that would handle this issue, serving on the Committee on Science and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Considered one of the more conservative members of the freshman class, she was defeated for re-election by Walter Capps in 1996.

After leaving political office, Mrs. Seastrand became a leader in the inception of The California Space and Technology Alliance, 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 three domains of California's diverse space enterprise community: commercial, civil and national security. She successfully authored legislation that created the California Space 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.

By providing vision, voice and edge for California's space enterprise, CSA has been designated as California's official spaceport authority since April 2001. In 1998, recognizing the value of collaborative strategic visioning, Mrs. Seastrand oversaw the development of the country's first, true, statewide, strategic space enterprise plan. The California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan was completed in 2004 with CSA playing a major role in its implementation.

With experience in the 1995 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) process, Mrs. Seastrand has focused CSA on the importance of protecting military installations that host key space assets in California. She has been very vocal throughout the state concerning BRAC preparedness and has worked with local communities and the State to develop a strong, unified voice. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Mrs. Seastrand in 2004 as one of 20 members on the Governor's statewide Council on Base Support and Retention. The Council works 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.

[edit] External links

• Congressional Biography