» Jim Kuzma has been hired as senior vice president and COO at Space Florida. Kuzma was most recently commanding officer of the Naval Ordnance Test Unit in Cape Canaveral. Denise Swanson has been named CFO and vice president of administration. She had been controller. Howard Haug, previously treasurer and CFO, is now treasurer and executive vice president.

» Former NASA scientist S. Alan Stern, an internationally known planetary scientist and astrophysicist, was selected as director of the Florida Space Institute at the Kennedy Space Center.

» The University of Central Florida hired professor Sampath Parthasarathy as the school's first endowed chair in cardiovascular science, the Florida Hospital Chair.

» The American-Advertising Federation Orlando elected Yeosh Bendayan as president for 2012.