Torvald Hessel, Executive Director & President

Torvald Hessel was elected to the Board in 2003 and currently serves as Executive Director and President, additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at ACC. He grew up in a small town in the northern part of the Netherlands, and received his Masters Degree in Astrophysics from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During his graduate school he worked for several years at the Artis Planetarium in Amsterdam as a lecturer and presenter. He developed planetarium presentations and taught Astronomy on all levels, from kindergarten kids to adults and fellow Astronomers. In 1999 he immigrated to the United States and ended up in Austin, TX. Before he started working fulltime for the Austin Planetarium he worked for seven years as a web designer and programmer for the University of Texas at Austin and in 2005 he became a naturalized citizen.

Carolyn Purcell, Vice President

Carolyn Purcell is a director in the State and Local Government (SLG) consulting practice at Cisco. The SLG team works with the top thought leaders in state and local government to develop innovative business solutions that improve service delivery to constituents and employees.

Before joining Cisco, Ms. Purcell served nine years as Texas’ Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR). She has extensive experience successfully creating and managing cross boundary projects and operations using multiparty funding and shared resources.

Ms. Purcell is currently on the board of Knowbility, a non-profit company established to support the independence of children and adults with disabilities by promoting the use and improving the availability of accessible information technology. She also serves on an advisory board for Crossroads Systems a company that delivers solutions to connect, protect, secure and restore business-critical "data-at-rest."

A native Texan, Purcell graduated from the University of Houston with a BA in English, and from the University of Texas at Austin with an MBA.

Dr. Ron Johns, Secretary

Dr. Ron Johns was elected to the Board in 2003 and served as Board Vice President for five years. Currently he holds the Secretary position. He is a professor of geology at Austin Community College. Dr. Johns obtained his B.S with honors in Geology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, then continued his education at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his M.A in Geological Sciences in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Geological Sciences in 1993. He was formerly the Chair of the Physical Sciences Department at ACC, and oversaw the college's programs in Astronomy, Engineering, Geology, and Physics.  He is now the Chair of the General Studies Department, which has about 3000 majors.

Steve Rung, Treasurer

Elected to the Board in 2004, Steve currently serves as backup webmaster for www.austinplanetarium.org. He spent his childhood in upstate New York, where the night sky is very dark – perfect for a boy to fall in love with the stars. Steve attended both Trinity University and the University of Texas at Austin, graduating from UT with a degree in Mathematics. Still an astronomy enthusiast, Steve currently works as an Assistant Director for the University of Texas. He is married and has two kids (ages eighteen and thirteen) who would love to go visit a planetarium in Austin.

Lary Cotten, Director

Lary Cotten was elected to the Board at the November 2007 meeting, and after serving as Secretary for a year, he served as Vice President and now serves as a Director of the Board. He is an electrical engineer specializing in the design and engineering of art, media, and entertainment technologies. Lary has spent the last couple of decades in Austin developing automated lighting, projection and control systems at High End Systems, managing electrical engineering for Frog Design, founding Open Labs, a manufacturer of audio and music production workstations, and creating installations for NAKA Media design and engineering. He now serves as the director of research and development for D2M Technologies, a locally based engineering and product development firm. After growing up in a school with a planetarium, observatory, theater and television studio, he came to Austin and never left. Lary often claims to be building a large telescope.

Russ Finney, Director 

Russ Finney was elected to serve on the Planetarium board in 2009. He is the Vice President of Information Systems at Tokyo Electron US Holdings – one of the world’s leading manufacturers of semiconductor production equipment – the machines that make computer chips. Russ has lived in Austin since 1994, and during that time he has served on the national board of directors of the Association of Information Technology Professionals, the local board of the Austin Technology Council, the Chamber of Commerce’s AusTech Alliance, and he was the founding Chairperson for Austin’s annual InnoTech technology conference – the largest event of its kind in central Texas.

He is also an amateur astronomer and an internationally known meteorite photographer and collector – he has photographed the important collections of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Monnig Meteorite Museum in Fort Worth, and the University of Texas Memorial Museum in Austin. Over the last few years he has made detailed visits to other science museums throughout the world to help develop a vision and roadmap for the Austin based effort – these include the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the Miraikan Museum and Planetarium in Tokyo, and the Japan National Museum of Nature and Science. He is a strong supporter of building a world class science museum here in the capital of Texas not only to reflect the unique character of the city but also to provide a lasting scientific and educational inspiration for all who visit.

John Hubbard, Director

John Hubbard was elected to the Board in April 2012. He attended the University of Texas at Austin where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics before receiving a Letter of Course Completion from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (National School of Administration) in Paris, France, and a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University. He has a wealth of experience in public policy and legislative affairs having worked in and around the Texas Legislature for more than 20 years. He is the founder and President of Premier Legislative Consulting (PLC Texas) a full-service public policy and advocacy company. His clients have included alternative energy advocates, public education groups, occupational associations and child development organizations. He and his wife Sara and are expecting their first child.

Anthony Plattsmier, Director

Anthony Plattsmier was elected to the Board in 2010. Mr. Plattsmier is a lifelong Austin resident with a wealth of enterprise management experience including work with Fortune 100 and Global 1000 companies. He is the founder of the innovative open source engineering database OpenGadget. A long time supporter of the Austin Planetarium, he currently provides primary systems integration planning, website support, and long term technology planning to the organization. Mr. Plattsmier is a sailing enthusiast, pilot and the President of the local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

Joseph Poirier, Director

Joseph Poirier was elected to the Board in 2011. Joseph is Director, Engineering Services at Convio, a leading provider of software solutions that enable nonprofit organizations to raise funds and cultivate relationships with their constituents. Previously, Joseph has held management, software engineering, and software trainer positions at IBM / Tivoli Systems, Compu-Train, and Synergis. Joseph is a graduate of Purdue University in Computer Science. He has been a lifelong astronomy enthusiast and owns several telescopes. During his childhood in northwest Indiana, near Chicago, he had the opportunity to visit the Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry numerous times, and hopes young children will soon have a similar world-class opportunity in Austin.