Idaho state schools chief Tom Luna will start his new job as a vice president with Project Lead the Way, a national education non-profit, on Jan. 1, 2015, according to the project’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Cahill. The non-profit, which provides STEM curriculum and training to schools nationwide, is based in Indianapolis, but Cahill said it has more than 50 “remote team members” who work from home in their home states; that’s what Luna will do as well. Luna will oversee four regional directors who will live and work in their regions, and all will travel as needed to Indianapolis.

Luna’s position – and the team he’ll head – is a new one for the firm, Cahill said; it won’t involve any direct lobbying. Instead, it’ll be focused on policy, advocacy and research, aimed at identifying growth opportunities and barriers to growth for the group’s programs. The new team, she said, will develop “general policy concepts and advance those through informational pieces.”

While Project Lead the Way began as a foundation-funded nonprofit, it no longer receives foundation funding, Cahill said, instead operating on the fees that schools pay to participate in the programs, which vary from $750 to $3,000 a year. In addition, it has numerous corporate partners, who give grants directly to the schools to help with the cost of the program; they include Chevron, Lockheed-Martin, Cargill, Toyota, General Motors, Dow Chemical, Amgen and more.