The first professional obligation for Ed Young, the Sun 'n Fun Aerospace Center for Excellence (ACE) executive director, was a fact-finding mission to the AOPA High School Aviation STEM Symposium in Louisville, Kentucky, in November.
Young was hard to miss at the conference in his red “remove before flight” tie, white shirt, blue Walt Disney World jacket, and red sneakers. The cheerful educator met with many of the 300 other industry professionals who participated in the aviation-based science, technology, engineering, and math learning event.
“Every time I teach a student to fly, you look back and relive those memories,” he told The Lakeland Ledger after the Nov. 8 announcement.
ACE students are surrounded by aircraft on the campus and can even attend class in a retired Boeing 727 aircraft outfitted with 26 seats and audio/visual equipment. Young’s role also includes overseeing the Florida Air Museum and its military, homebuilt, and aerobatic aircraft.