The Discovery Center at Water’s Edge is pleased to announce the addition of five new members to its Board of Directors: Richard “Dick” Schwanke, Jill Peregino, Danielle Stevens, John Resta, and Eric Schuster.
The Board of Directors is a dedicated team of community leaders committed to providing governance, oversight of corporate activities and performances, major decision-making, stability, and ideas for the opening and growth of the Discovery Center at Water’s Edge.
“We are excited to channel the expertise and energy of Dick, Jill, Danielle, Eric, and John to further our mission,” said Board President Charlie Nietubicz.
Richard “Dick” Schwanke has been a staple in Harford County community environmental initiatives and offices for decades. Dick has served in various roles relating to the environment and managing hazardous materials at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Goddard Space Flight Center, the Army Environmental Hygiene Agency (AEHA, now known as CHPPM), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and SURVICE Engineering. Throughout his career, Dick also taught at Harford Community College (HCC) as an instructor and technical director of their Environmental and Safety Center. In addition, he is also currently an Environment, Safety, and Health Subject Matter Expert for SURVICE Engineering. Dick has mentored thousands of students at dozens of Harford County Public Schools, and a half dozen local private schools. Dick also serves as president of the Senior Science Society.
Jill Peregino is an associate professor of data science and mathematics at Harford Community College. She is a STEM educator with over 11 years’ experience teaching math and science at the secondary and college level in Harford County Maryland. She has also served as an affiliate instructor in statistics at Loyola University Maryland. Prior to moving to education, Jill was vice president at IQVIA (formally IMS Health). With over 20 years in healthcare market research, Jill is skilled in sample design, projection methods, variance estimation and statistical modeling. During her tenure there, she received the Summit Award, a prestigious award given to the top one percent of global performers within the organization. In addition, she co-authored the patent “System and Methods for Generating Physician Profiles Concerning Prescription Therapy Practices.” This is an innovative statistical model to profile physicians based on their prescribing patterns. She also received several regional awards for her contributions to new product development.
Danielle Stevens began her career working for Red Bull Distributing while she was in the honors program at the University of Baltimore pursuing a major in business marketing. Thanks to her achievements in sales and share growth, Anheuser Busch hired her to oversee their top 100 accounts and five wholesalers. During her 10 years at Anheuser Busch, Danielle developed national marketing campaigns, such as the Stella Artois chalice engraver program. She went on to Comcast Business where she was an account executive for three years. Danielle will serve as the Discovery Center’s marketing chairperson.
John Resta retired in December 2020 from his position as deputy chief of staff for public health (DCS-PH), Office of the Surgeon General (OTSG) and U.S. Army MEDCOM, representing the Commanding General of the US Army Medical Command on all public health, wellness, environmental health, and veterinary services. Concurrent with that position, he was the director of the U.S. Army Medical Command’s Public Health Center, where he was responsible for overseeing the activities of more than 1,000 scientists, physicians, engineers, industrial hygienists, veterinarians and other public health specialists with the primary mission of promoting health and preventing disease, injury, and disability among soldiers, military retirees and their families, veterans and Department of Army civilian employees, in addition to ensuring full-spectrum veterinary services to the Army and DOD.
Eric Schuster, area vice president at Paylocity, has over eight years of experience in outside sales and has taken on the position on the board as Treasurer for the Discovery Center at Water’s Edge. Eric brings his successful skills in time management, adaptability, project management, and creative problem solving to our team. Eric is a graduate of Towson University with a degree in business management and was a member of the Tigers champion football team for three years.
About the Discovery Center at Water’s Edge
The Discovery Center at Waters Edge will be an interactive STEM center where kids of all ages can experience hands-on science and technology, see tomorrow’s technology today, learn the history of scientific discovery in our area, discover new worlds, and make new connections.
On November 10, the Discovery Center will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its Preview Center in Belcamp, MD, which has several full-scale exhibits designed to give visitors an experience of what is to come in the planned full-scale science center. The Preview Center also offers classroom and community space where the Discovery Center has launched several summer and after-school programs. Additionally, the facility is available for school field trips, educator meetings, and nonprofit science group events.
Discovery Center leaders are currently pursuing Phase 2 of the facility, which will expand the center to be able to host between 40,000-50,000 people per year.
Phase 3 will expand the center to 35,000 square feet to serve over 100,000 visitors each year. For more information about the Discovery Center at Water’s Edge, visit https://discoverycentermd.org.
