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Biography: Victoria Conner VICTORIA CONNER is principal and founder of Strategic Vitality, LLC, a consulting practice focusing on collaborative strategic planning, meeting facilitation and “creative consensus-building”. In addition to local strategic planning support, recent projects include serving as project lead for the development of the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010, an effort involving 200 statewide public/private stakeholders and 120 organizations. A similar plan Conner authored in 1998 has garnered a $100M+ investment in California space enterprise assets and activities under the California Space Infrastructure Program (CSIP) launched by Congress to address the strategic plan recommendations. Late in 2005, Conner authored on behalf of the California Innovation Corridor (Corridor) and the California Space Authority (CSA) a successful U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) $15M “Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development – WIRED” grant proposal. The proposal featured 25 individual projects, a consortium of 60+ partners and was one of three proposals statewide forwarded by the Governor’s office to DOL through the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Strategic Vitality serves on the Leadership Team for the Corridor, inaugurating and coordinating activities of the Project Leads Forum to facilitate integration and alignment of the 25 grant projects. Key projects for the initiative include: a statewide economic development innovation model led by the Bay Area Economic Forum/Bay Area Science Innovation Consortium; a Workforce Investment Board innovation “toolkit” led by the California Council on Science and Technology; and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Collaborative Action Plan (STEMCAP). The STEMCAP is guided by a Steering Committee recruited by Strategic Vitality and comprised of representatives of the Chancellors’ Offices of the Community College and California State College systems, the University of California President’s Office, other executive offices of California education, as well as industry and informal science. As a WIRED grant partner, Conner also formed the Supply Chain Industry Advisory Group and, in support of the “Smart Supplier” initiative she helped introduce in the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan, she convened a forum to characterize the current supply chain transformation and to begin a dialogue around the training needs resulting from the transformation. A former vice president and chief programs officer for California Space Authority, Conner served as project liaison to the Governor’s Office for the first-ever Governor’s Aerospace Conference (1999) and to NASA for the 1999 and 2000 CSA/NASA conferences. She previously owned Victoria Conner & Associates, a communications firm, and she has had two decades of private sector communications and marketing experience. Representative clients included: Blue Cross of California, Union Bank of California, Westberg & White Architects, County of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo Drug and Alcohol Services, Pismo Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, San Luis Obispo County Visitors and Conference Bureau, Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, Dana Adobe Nipomo Amigos, Southern California Water Company/Cal Cities Water, Natural History Association of San Luis Obispo County and French Hospital. Her wealth of professional experience includes early career positions as a personnel director, marketing director, free-lance technology features writer, an art gallery owner/director and a teacher. She is a former vice president of the board of directors for: San Luis Obispo County Visitors and Conference Bureau, Pismo Beach Chamber, Pismo Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Pismo Beach Business Improvement Group and ARTernatives. She is currently a member of the Santa Maria Breakfast Rotary Club, the International Footprint Association (law enforcement support/Central Coast Chapter), the California Space Authority (statewide) and the Association for Strategic Planning (Los Angeles Chapter).
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