lgbtq entrepreneur – Dickinson Law's Inside Entrepreneurship Law Blog

By: Shila Bayor

Sally Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, California. After graduating high school, she went to Stanford University where she would ultimately earn her doctorate in physics. On June 18th, 1983, Ride became the first U.S. woman in space. Apart from being an astronaut, Ride has inspired countless people, as she lived a life committed to science, education, and inclusion. Among those that she inspired is Penn State Dickinson Law’s very own Dean Dodge. Ride was Dean Dodge’s physics and astronomy professor at UC San Diego.

“As a young person on campus in the LGBT community, she was so inspirational to us. She was incredible and such a memorable professor.”

The impact of Ride’s work extends far beyond her time on campus and in space as she was an absolute trailblazer who was unafraid of growth. She founded multiple companies and was involved in many initiatives to introduce STEM to young boys and girls. Ride founded Sally Ride Science alongside a small group of her colleagues. The company, which is now a nonprofit organization, works to promote literacy and diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The organization continues in Ride’s name to inspire young people of all backgrounds.

The Trailblazer

NASA began looking for women astronauts in 1977. Ride was a student at the time and responded to an ad she saw in the school newspaper inviting women to apply to the astronaut program. She was one of six women selected!

On June 18, 1983, Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. She was an astronaut on the STS-7 space shuttle mission where her job was to use a robotic arm to help put satellites into space. Ride flew on the space shuttle again in 1984. While Ride had a remarkable career at NASA, she also encountered a number of obstacles in her career, including gender-biased questions from reporters.

Ride stopped working for NASA in 1987 and started teaching at the University of California in San Diego. During this period, Ride started looking for ways to help women and girls who wanted to study science and mathematics. This desire to help increase the participation of women in STEM would turn her to entrepreneurship.

Inspiring Women to pursue careers in STEM through entrepreneurship

During her life, Ride found herself drawn to entrepreneurship. In the 1990s, Ride, along with a group of astronomy and business professionals, came together to develop a website dedicated to covering news related to space and astronomy, www.space.com. With the explosion of the internet and the public’s appetite for space exploration, Ride and her colleagues knew that a website dedicated to all things space would satiate this need. Ride worked on crafting a strategic plan for developing partnerships in the areas of education and science, in an effort to make the website as far-reaching as it could be. Her hard work paid off when Discover gave Space.com ad space in their print publications. Ride was then named the first president of Space.com. From that position, Ride created a separate channel within the Space.com site, called SpaceKids. Ride created SpaceKids to curate kid-specific content related to space and to help inspire kids to take up careers in STEM. Ride’s focus on inspiring kids to take up careers in science served her well in her next business venture, Sally Ride Science.

To address the lack of girls in STEM, Ride helped to create a program that would increase participation. She felt that a business would be the best approach to solving the problem so she organized, managed and assumed the risk of this enterprise. Ride recognized a need and decided to fill it.

In the late 1990s, Ride convened the leading minds in STEM education from across the country to understand the problems facing women in science. At the same time, Ride also started writing children’s science books and began to work on the EarthKAM project with NASA, a project that enabled middle school children to learn about space from a camera on the space shuttle.

These events served to convince Ride, her life partner–Tam O’Shaughnessy, and three academics from EarthKAM – Terry McEntee, Alann Lopes and Karen Flammer – to create a company that would address young girls, science, and gender stereotypes.

When Ride and her colleagues first established the business, they named it “Imaginary Lines” as a tribute to both the lines on a map and Ride’s oft-quoted description of seeing the atmosphere from space as the “thin blue hazy line” and the fragile nature of the earth. “Imaginary Lines” was to be a science education company.

Raising money and finding investors for their project was challenging. Ride and the other founders sought funding in 2001 and were successful in raising just under $1 million, an amount that was short of their expectations. Finally, several business advisors pointed out that by branding Imaginary Lines with the ‘Sally Ride’ name they would have an easier path forward, and so, Sally Ride Science, Inc. was born. From the time they tied Ride’s name to the venture, she and her co-founders were able to get sponsorships for their science programs for young women from such diverse organizations as Exxon Mobil and Hasbro.

As an entrepreneur, Ride was unafraid of growth. Although Ride was an introvert, she had to step out of her comfort zone and develop sales skills to get doors to open for her company. She generated multiple streams of income by selling books online and getting corporate sponsorship for teacher training. The business pushed her and other founders to step out of their comfort zone and do things they had never done before.

After Ride passed away in 2012, Tam O’Shaughnessy became CEO of Sally Ride Science, Inc. and negotiated the acquisition of the organization by UC San Diego. Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego is now a nonprofit and continues its mission to inspire girls and boys of all backgrounds to study science and imagine themselves in science and technology careers.

Her relationship with her partner of 27 years

Ride and O’Shaughnessy met in the 1960s when they were just kids playing tennis. Instead of paying attention to the tennis match when they were sitting on the bench, they would chat and get to know each other. Later, when they were both in their early 30s they started spending more time together. Their romantic relationship grew in bits and pieces over a long period of time until they both finally realized that the romantic feelings were there. While O’Shaughnessy was openly gay to her friends and family, Ride was not and so their romantic relationship was a secret. When Ride left NASA and moved to California, they thought that was when they would finally start to be open with everyone. But then they started working on Sally Ride Science, which they needed corporate sponsorships for. Because of the fear of discrimination, they felt that they still could not be publicly open about their romantic relationship. They were together for 27 years and they kept their relationship a secret from the public the entire time. In Ride’s last days, while she was battling pancreatic cancer, she left the decision to make her sexuality public up to O’Shaughnessy. It was then that Ride came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Ride is still the first and only acknowledged LGBTQ astronaut.

Remembering Her

In 2003, Ride was added to the Astronaut Hall of Fame, which honors astronauts for their hard work. Until her death on July 23, 2012, Ride continued to help students study science and mathematics. Ride’s legacy lives on and she is still remembered for her work, contribution to science and commitment to inclusion. In 2013, Ride received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Tam O’Shaughnessy accepted the medal on behalf of Ride.

Ride was a phenomenal entrepreneur who fought for inclusion and diversity in STEM. Ride famously said,

“You can’t be what you can’t see.”

Ride’s life and legacy show the power of representation. This Pride, we should all be inspired by Ride’s legacy and her fight for inclusion.

Shila Bayor, at the time of this post, is a rising second-year student at Penn State Dickinson Law. She is from New York City and is a graduate of Bard College. Shila is currently the president of the Business Law Society and secretary for the Black Law Student Union.