About

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Who We Are

We Are People Who Love Airplanes and History Sharing Our Passion With Youngsters

The Forgotten Heroes Foundation was founded to bring context and excitement to STEM education for middle school youngsters. Our staff consists of volunteers who are pilots, mechanics, programmers, engineers and teachers. All of them committed to community service for most of their lives. Over 90 percent served in the armed forces executing mission critical tasking in many of the areas and disciplines that they explore with our program participants.

In an ever-changing, increasingly complex world, it's more important than ever that our nation's youth are prepared to bring knowledge and skills to solve problems, make sense of information, and know how to gather and evaluate evidence to make decisions. These are the kinds of skills that students develop in science, technology, engineering and math—disciplines collectively known as STEM. If we want a nation where our future leaders, neighbors, and workers have the ability to understand and solve some of the complex challenges of today and tomorrow, and to meet the demands of the dynamic and evolving workforce, building students' skills, content knowledge, and fluency in STEM fields is essential. We must also make sure that, no matter where children live, they have access to quality learning environments. A child's zip code should not determine their STEM fluency. --- U.S. Department of Education

For the academic and community institutions the Foundation was founded to serve we supply external curriculum enrichment resources. We know that we love historically significant airplanes and talking about them but we also know that, for most of us, teaching middle school youngsters was not in our training. The Foundation, therefore, depends on the schools who take advantage of the resources we offer to make STEM (and the associated concepts), concrete and approachable. A picture is worth a thousand words but being able to see a mathematical, engineering or scientific principle in action cannot be put into words.

Foundation Programs

STEM Workshops

The Foundation provides two day workshops in coding focusing on the micro-bit processor system The workshop includes (1) hardware exercises showing students how to connect external devices to the microbit computer and (2) introductory seminar in coding for the micro-bit.  Typically, each student that attends receives their own FREE micro-bit computer to continue experimenting and learning.

 
Aviation Seminars

Foundation aviation seminars focus on specific STEM subjects within the context of one of the Foundation's historically significant aircraft. Principles of flight, mechanics and history are all discussed from the perspective of the respective aircraft and the people who flew them. Students are then immersed in the Foundation's simulators and encouraged to put what they learned into practice.

Our Team

Raf Collado

Founder/Chairman

Micah Lenox

Director, Educational and Community Laison

Paul Miles

Director, Aviation Education

Charles Walker

Director, Facilities and Technology.

Pete Stavrides

Director, Historical Aircraft

Frank Diaz

Director, Foundation Merchandising/Sales

Mike Kuhnert

Director, Air Shows.

Jeanette Balabis

Director, Administration Services.