Cape Canaveral has been my home for 32 years. What makes me qualified to speak for you on the City Council? My experiences in a varied professional career and the desire to serve you, my fellow citizens in the community we love.
You may not know...
In the years I've lived here, I’ve been NASA’s voice, a television news reporter/anchor, a talk radio show host, a columnist for Florida TODAY, a writer for several online publications, a public speaker, and a campaign manager for a local candidate who ran and won a seat on the Brevard county commission. I have served on the Planning and Zoning board here in Cape Canaveral.
I managed Community and Employee Relations for USBI, a Fortune 500 aerospace company under contract to NASA to refurbish the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters at Kennedy Space Center. I also worked temporary duty with Pratt & Whitney, helping develop and execute a public relations plan in support of P&W’s rocket hybrid venture with the Russian Space Agency.
I reported NASA Shuttle payload operations on a daily basis to local, national, and international media at the KSC Press site. I voiced the shuttle launch commentary from the KSC Launch Control Center the day Space Shuttle 51-L Challenger exploded over our coast. I was subsequently tapped to work on the ensuing “51-L Data and Design Analysis Investigation” of the shuttle malfunction, working under the direction of astronaut Bob Crippen at KSC.
My community involvement included serving on the Board of our local United Way, chairing a committee that vetted and awarded grant monies to various Brevard County agencies.
I conceived and executed a lucrative benefit for the Brevard County Library system, organizing the successful “Evening Under the Stars” event that attracted more than a dozen authors for a meet and greet cocktail party.
I am graduated from the Leadership Brevard Program, and participated on the Board of the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. My husband and I established and operated a public relations agency located right here in Cape Canaveral.
In the course of hosting several talk radio programs, “Morning Blend with Andrea Shea-King;” “Court Radio” on WMEL co-hosted with local attorney and former Cape Canaveral City Councilman Tony Hernandez; and “Out and About” on WMMB, I have interviewed countless Brevard County elected officials, business owners, Arts and Cultural directors, physicians, lawyers, judges, and myriad County professionals about issues and events in our local communities.
I arrived in Cape Canaveral in 1982 via a position with WESH-TV (Channel 2) when I was hired as a general assignment reporter and news anchor. Based in WESH’s Cape Canaveral bureau, I covered both local and Space Center news.
When Florida TODAY’s social columnist retired, I was hired to write two columns a week about Brevard’s social events and charity benefits, giving me the opportunity to meet and mingle with Brevard’s “movers and shakers.” I never missed a deadline in the seven years I wrote and filed two weekly columns.
I have been invited to speak to various local civic and political groups, and with the help of Gold Star parents Karen and Billy Vaughn, helped raise local awareness about the investigation of thirty Americans including their son, Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn (Seal Team 6), who died in action in Afghanistan when a chopper (call sign Extortion 17) was shot from the sky.
I was a member of CIV-MIL, a social organization dedicated to bring together our business and military communities. This gave me the opportunity to learn more about the defense business at Patrick AFB and Port Canaveral and become better acquainted with the men and women who served and ran these installations so close to us.
Speaking of our military, I’ve been involved with Wreaths Across America, having interviewed its founder and arranged for our Congressional Representative Bill Posey to award Morrell Worcester and his wife Karen with a commendation for their steadfast dedication to our fallen who eternally lie at Arlington National Cemetery and now in veteran cemeteries across America, including the one in Mims.
My husband Tim and I are the parents of two adult children and grandparents to their children. We have made Cape Canaveral our home for more than 30 years because we love living here.