I’m approaching my 6th year working at IDEAS and my favorite person in the whole building is the one that intimidated me since the first day I walked in. If you have time to find out how the personality of ONE individual can dramatically change the environment of your work place, then let me explain why I love our scheduling manager, Christine Biondo.

Behind all her aggressive demands of making her job easier by making sure we all do what we are supposed to be doing in the first place, Christine is the one person that I miss the most when she is not around. Some people have laughs that you want to avoid by putting your headphones on, and others have laughs that you want to hear every day. I work with many people in one room and every time Christine laughs, everybody laughs with her. It is a contagious laugh and it is hard to avoid smiling when you hear it.

Christine always asks how my son is doing and how my wife is doing. She is genuine about it and it makes me feel good when she does it. Christine makes the time to get involved with each individual. She looks for me to play ping pong. I make her look really bad when we play, but I enjoy watching her fight the battle. She demands me to not spin the ball and to not slam it either. But I do it anyway.

Since she is a loyal Catholic and she knows I went to a Jesuit School, she lectures me on going to Church and on which days are we celebrating what. I don’t do too good following the religion I was raised with. Let me re-phrase that! I am not good at all with my Catholic lifestyle, but it pleases me to see someone so devoted to their Religion. It doesn’t hurt me, it doesn’t hurt you, and so I appreciate it.

She really likes it when you visit her at her office from time to time. All you have to do is listen and she’ll tell you everything that is going on in her life. Nothing bad! All entertaining. Because I think she has a killer personality and I enjoy her company, I used to film her a lot and post her videos on my social media pages. She didn’t really like that. To this day, she doesn’t see how she can be so entertaining. Knowing what I can do with social media, I could easily produce a reality show on just Christine’s life.

You can read her like an open book and when she is upset, she will not talk to you, but she’ll eventually let you know that she is upset. I love that she is direct about it. She cuts to the chase so we can fix it. The funny thing is that whether she is upset or she is in her usual state, I like having her around. She is a lot younger than my grandmother, but she reminds me of my grandmother whom I love very much.

How often do you have an employee in your company that is so amusing, entertaining and interesting that you want to record and post videos of her for all your friends to see? Christine Biondo makes it fun to work at IDEAS. She loves all the guys in the production team, even when we give her a hard time. She fights for us and we will always fight for her.

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And the winner of the IDEAS National Pie Day cook-off is …. Rebecca Hodges and her BLUEBERRY pie.  She is now the proud owner of the “Golden Oven Mitt”.

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Click HERE to learn more about our work with Siemens Corporation.

“This was an excellent opportunity for many of Orlando production professionals to come together and donate their time for an amazing cause,” commented Jennifer Foster, President of Foster Productions, Inc. “We set out to create a video that would garner the most votes in the Pink Well Challenge and ended up being deeply touched by the spirit of the survivors who shared their personal stories with us. Now, more than ever, we hope Libby’s Legacy wins the $50,000 so they can continue to impact lives in our community.”

Voting began on January 16, 2012. Anyone can vote for Libby’s Legacy by visiting www.pinkwell.org and searching for Libby’s Legacy Breast Cancer Foundation. Each person can vote once a day from each of their Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail accounts until May 15, 2012. Libby’s Legacy was one of over 150 breast cancer organizations nationwide to apply for a grant from the Lester Smith Pink Well Challenge, a national campaign symbolized by an active pink pump jack in the heart of west Texas. Through this challenge, Texas oil tycoon Lester Smith vowed to award $1 million in matching funds to breast cancer organizations across the nation. Libby’s Legacy was named one of the top 30 finalists in October, catapulting the organization into the $50,000 video challenge with other breast cancer charities. The finalist position also secures matching donation funds of up to $45,000. Winning the additional $50,000 video challenge will allow this Central Florida charity to continue to raise awareness and provide support for mothers, sisters, wives, daughters and friends as they fight this fight, not just surviving, but living.

“We have the opportunity to work with a lot of great clients and organizations,” noted John Lux, President of IDEAS. “But it’s rare to meet a group of people that care so deeply for others and strive to help so many people right here in our own community. It was an honor to be part of such a project and sincerely hope everyone votes so they can win the money they so deeply deserve.”

Each organization was invited to submit a four minute video that captures the essence of their organization and what they do. Members of the Central Florida production community, led by Foster Productions and IDEAS, came together and donated their time to provide professional production and post production services. The video tells the story of how Libby’s Legacy is “in the corner” of Central Florida women as they battle breast cancer. The video was unveiled at a special screening with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on January 16, 2012 at IDEAS.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer honored the Survivors who bravely appeared in this video by committing to help get the City of Orlando behind the voting efforts! He also thanked the members of the Orlando production community who gave of their time and talent to support this great cause. Before introducing the video, he said “We’re going to win and I’ve committed to help get out the word about voting for Libby’s Legacy!”

Libby’s Legacy is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit charity who provides comprehensive breast health services to the underserved Central Florida community through education, mammograms, follow up diagnostics and Hope Coaches on the journey from diagnosis through treatment and beyond. Founded in 2007 by Robin Maynard in honor of her mother, Libby’s Legacy has provided over 2,100 Breast Health services, diagnosed 44 breast cancers through life saving diagnostics, and awarded 5 LIVE BIG cruises to stage IV cancer survivors. For more information, visit: www.pinkwell.org and www.libbyslegacy.org.

About Foster Productions (www.FosterProductions.com): Orlando-based Foster Productions, Inc. is an innovative digital media company dedicated to providing our customers with superior service and uncompromised quality. Our goal is to tell purposeful, effective stories through high quality production and then deliver those messages using the latest technological capabilities. To do that, we become aligned with our clients brand, culture and needs then apply our experience, expertise and creativity to promote, entertain and sustain their business. Foster Productions specializes in High Definition Video Production including Commercials, Corporate Marketing Promotional and Training Videos  and Broadcast Television.

About IDEAS (www.ideasorlando.com): Located in downtown Orlando, IDEAS is an Innovation Studio using the central premise that powerful stories create powerful experiences. IDEAS creates entertainment, learning, and marketing products for Healthcare, Corporate, Government, Education, Destination, Television & Film clients as well as creating its own intellectual property. The company is comprised of four divisions. IDEAS Innovation offers a proprietary suite of story-based tools to analyze and develop solutions to enhance brand identity, create new communication tools, enculturate organizational change, design and deliver intentional experiences, and create authentic work environments. IDEAS Learning creates custom and original learning products for both on-line and face-to-face training and learning. The IDEAS Hothouse is our proprietary system for developing intellectual property into marketable products and services. And IDEAS Studio creates the media products for the other divisions of IDEAS as well as serves as a traditional “post house” for third party clients for corporate and broadcast markets.

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Unlike a lot of companies that specialize in one tight area of focus (say computer technology or banking), our work at IDEAS spans a number of very different “vertical” slices. In order to create new and innovative solutions for our clients- the “what if”, we often need to first understand present reality-the “is now”. Importantly, this isn’t just the facts. It’s also those components of culture. Who is trusted? What is considered a good source of information? What’s the “official” position in the boardroom vs. the “boots on the ground” point of view in the field? If an innovative change is being contemplated, what will make it work, what will kill it and who do we need to have on board as a champion to push it through?

We get at this important stuff through a special story harvesting technique that we’ve refined through many iterations. Essentially, we set the stage through some special kinds of open questions and then encourage not “sound bite” answers but full stories. So often when we do this work, we see first a look of incredulity and then warm relief when people realize that we WANT them to tell us long, rambling stories. These stories contain the factual and the subtle emotive narrative cues that allow us to very quickly create not just a solid diagnosis for the innovation under development, but also a clear picture of how the culture functions. Through this process (we call it Culture Mapping), we build a great baseline of ground truth. The next step is to use our proprietary design-thinking system called StoryJam to blow out the potential for the future.

The desert between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences was host to an image in October that was sent worldwide – British billionaire Richard Branson hanging by ropes off the side of a glass-walled balcony for the terminal hangar at Spaceport America.

The Oct. 17 event was the ceremonial dedication for the 110,152-square-foot building that will hold Virgin Galactic’s fleet of spaceliners and be where its affluent passengers begin and end their $200,000 rides into space.

The Virgin Galactic system launches its spaceship from midair using a hybrid rocket engine. When asked about when the craft would be flying into space, Branson was only willing to say the first rocket-powered flight tests would be sometime in 2012, but wouldn’t say exactly when he would begin flying passengers to achieve the goal of taking 500 people to space the first year of operations.

Branson told reporters he couldn’t afford even the marginal failure rate of NASA space flight experience. Branson said he plans to conduct many test flights before those passengers are taken to space, with him and his family being the first passengers. Virgin’s first spaceliner has made more than 70 flight tests, including a number of solo glide flights of SpaceShip Two, a six-passenger version of the twoseater that was the first private-sector rocket vehicle to reach suborbital space in 2004.

Creating the spaceliner fleet is “the biggest dream of my lifetime,” Branson said. “I still get goose bumps every time I think that I’m doing this,” he said.

Called “Keys to a New Dawn,” the terminal hangar dedication signaled that construction was nearly finished on the $32.5 million building, which is designed by URS/Foster + Partners to both be modern and blend in with the surrounding desert. It is LEED certified gold for its environmental sensitivities and energy efficiencies.

Virgin Galactic designers and interior architects will begin working on making the insides of the hangar as other-worldly and upscaled as the exterior.

In return for building the terminal hangar and two-mile-long runway at the spaceport, Virgin Galactic has promised to set up its headquarters in New Mexico, and Las Cruces will be home to its first offices opening in January 2012.

Virgin has already hired more than 100 people, many of them Americans, because large-scale rocketry falls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) passed after the 9/11 attacks.

As work continues to make sure the spaceliner is safe for its passengers, the company is now focusing on preparing the on-ground experiences. Virgin plans to fly at least twice a day with passengers arriving two days before their flight. Those passengers also are expected to bring family, friends and others during their visit. Virgin is currently assessing what kind of “tourism infrastructure” is available in southern New Mexico.

Virgin also is looking into establishing reliable sources of materials, equipment and facilities near Spaceport America. One of the critical issues facing the tourism and supply chain economic development for the spaceport is adding suppliers to liability protection, which lawmakers have only been willing to give to the main launch companies such as Virgin. Without similar liability protections given to those supporting the companies taking passengers on space flights, spaceport supporters are saying the effort won’t generate many jobs, especially if Spaceport America’s business becomes limited to only government and testing launches.

One local company, Barnett’s Las Cruces Harley-Davidson dealership, debuted merchandise that flew to suborbital space 73 miles over Spaceport America in a rocket launch May 20. Along with student educational experiments, the UP Aerospace rocket carried 30 insignia pins for Barnett’s. The three varieties of pins all come with certificates about the flight and a display case to be sold online for between $3,000 and $5,000 each.

Other companies eye spaceport

In 2011, NASA awarded companies contracts to provide near-space flight services include several companies working out of Spaceport America. Each of the companies will integrate and fly technology payloads to the boundary of space using commercial suborbital launch systems as part of a package of contracts worth a combined total of $10 million.

As part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, the seven companies selected will receive two-year contracts that will allow NASA to deliver research and technology payloads by drawing from a pool of commercial space companies.

The selected companies include: Armadillo Aerospace of Heath, Texas; Near Space Corp. of Tillamook, Ore.; Masten Space Systems of Mo-jave, Calif.; UP Aerospace Inc. of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Virgin Galactic, anchor tenant at Spaceport America; Whittinghill Aerospace LLC of Camarillo, Calif.; and XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif. Besides Virgin Galactic, Armadillo and UP Aerospace have conducted launches from Spaceport America.

“This is exciting news for the future of the commercial space industry and Spaceport America,” said New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) Executive Director Christine Anderson. “UP Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace and Virgin Galactic are already clients of our spaceport, and we are in a unique position to help these companies and the others deliver on their new NASA contracts.”

Armadillo Aerospace began flight testing of multiple vehicles at Spaceport America in 2011 and UP Aerospace has conducted nine launches from Spaceport America since 2006. Spaceport America also has been working with aerospace firms Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Moog-FTS for research and development flight tests of designs for systems, such as reusable rocket boosters that glide back to the ground after launch.

Other Spaceport America milestones in 2011 included the awarding of contracts for different services. Enterprise Advisory Service Inc. (EASI) has been awarded a contract to provide general services for Spaceport America. EASI will have nine New Mexico resident staff members at the spaceport, while 29 local subcontractors – 22 from Las Cruces, five from Albuquerque and two from El Paso – will be available to support surge activities.

EASI was awarded the two-year base contract for $630,125 as a firm fixed price for key personnel and a not-to-exceed value of almost $1.2 million that is managed through task authorizations by the NMSA. As its primary function, EASI will develop policy and procedures for Spaceport America’s general services requirements, which will include: maintenance of buildings, utilities, roads and airfield; grounds keeping, waste management, janitorial services, fuel storage operations and maintenance; and the fueling of motor and air vehicles.

IDEAS, is the contractor to develop the Spaceport America Visitor experience. The Orlando, Florida-based company was awarded a two-phase contract of a not-to exceed value of $7.5 million to oversee the design and development of the visitor experience and related facilities at Spaceport America, as well as the design, fabrication and installation of all exhibits and attractions for visitors to the spaceport.

The company will also conduct market research, enhance branding and marketing, as well as broker alliance and sponsorship development opportunities. The IDEAS team includes Integrated Insight Inc., ORCA Consulting LLC, Cordova Marketing Group, Exline Design and Architecture, MYDesign Inc. and Blackhorse Worldwide. New Mexico team members are SMPC Architects of Albuquerque and Larry Littlebird of Santa Fe.

Team IDEAS clients have included every major Walt Disney theme park and resort, major Universal Studios theme parks, NASCAR, the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, the U.S. Capitol, the Statue of Liberty, the Air Force and the Navy. Visit www.ideasorlando.com to learn more about the company.

“Their relevant experience in the entertainment and education industry, with an emphasis on creative storytelling and a strong focus on education and learning design, is a great match for Spaceport America,” Anderson said.

Gov. Susana Martinez has set a goal of making Spaceport America able to operate without state support, but getting to that point of operations is expected to take at least another year of state-funded support through the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

Click HERE to view the article from The Las Cruces Bulletin