FISTA names executive director

FISTA Innovation Park has a new executive director.

Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce President Krista Ratliff was named FISTA’s executive director Tuesday by the entity’s governing board, the FISTA Development Trust Authority. Authority members met in special session Tuesday to approve the employment agreement with Ratliff, which begins June 1.

Ratliff already is working for FISTA on a part-time basis. In late October, the trust authority hired her as a consultant to help coordinate $20 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding allocated to FISTA from Oklahoma’s share of the federal dollars. The agreement specifies Ratliff would help in areas such as strategic planning and development, funding strategies, helping with applications, and management of the anechoic chamber, Sensitive Compartmented Facility, STEM lab and MakerSpace classrooms, and the incubator and accelerator.

Those tasks also will fall under Ratliff in her role as executive director, a new position that trust authority members announced in January they would be creating.

That position is designed to take the lead role in operating the military defense contractor work/office space and interact with entities outside the complex. Trust Authority Chairman Clarence Fortney has said an active top secret security clearance was a requirement of the position because of federal and military security requirements for the complex.