Meet Caeley Looney | CEO & Founder at Reinvented Inc. & Aerospace Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Caeley Looney and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Caeley, what do you want your legacy to be?
Caeley Looney, founder and CEO of Reinvented Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, knows first-hand what it’s like to be a strong, empowered woman working in the male-dominated fields of STEM. She started her journey with engineering at a young age when she joined the local Girl Scouts FIRST robotics program and participated in competitions with an all-girl team. During high school, Caeley discovered her love for space and eventually attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering. After a couple of internships with the Institute for Defense Analyses and NASA, Caeley landed her dream job as a Space Mission Analyst for L3Harris right out of college, and is now working as a Mission Operations Engineer at Firefly Aerospace on their Blue Ghost lunar lander.

During this STEM journey, Caeley realized the need for more support and empowerment for young women seeking careers in science and technology. In May 2018, Caeley pulled together a team of volunteers from all over the world and created her nonprofit, Reinvented. Reinvented’s mission is to reinvent the general perception of women in STEM fields while inspiring interest in STEM for young women worldwide. Reinvented is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that aspires to break barriers and aid the movement to get more girls involved in STEM through the creation of the nation’s first print magazine for girls in STEM by girls in STEM, their magazine donation program, and their Princesses with Powertools program.

There’s very little diverse representation in STEM fields, and when there is, women feel the need to conform and change themselves to be treated as an equal. We lose parts of ourselves to fit in and this invalid image trickles down into the way the next generation views these careers and drives them away. She set out to change that perspective by creating Reinvented, which amplifies the diverse voices of women in STEM and showcases who they are as a whole person versus just their career.

Reinvented shows young girls that anyone can pursue a STEM career, #BrilliantIsBeautiful. Their magazine has been read by over 15,000 subscribers in all 50 states and over 30 countries. They’ve donated over 10,000 magazines to Title I schools, libraries, and more being read by nearly 50,000 students in low income and underserved communities. Their princess calendars have inspired over 100,000 students across the U.S. and the hands-on program has taught 7,000 girls how to use a powertool. Now, in four short years, Caeley has been able to inspire over 200,000 girls with Reinvented’s programs.

She’s in a princess gown with a powertool at every event, she ships magazines every weekend, and she organizes program materials every spare moment she has. She works full-time as an engineer and then comes home to put in another 8 hours of work because she knows what it’s like to feel excluded in an industry and have no one to look up to, and she never wanted another girl in STEM to feel that way again.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Caeley Looney is a woman in the STEM community. She grew up with a strong, female role model in STEM, her mom, and when she went away for college, she quickly realized how hard things become when you don’t have easy access to encouragement and support. Even though her mom was always just a phone call away, Caeley didn’t have her shoulder to cry on when someone made a mean comment or told her she didn’t belong. She learned that she was lucky and that most of her peers didn’t have their own role model or support system at home. Throughout her college and professional careers, Caeley faced the same gender bias and discrimination that many of her peers are not unfamiliar with. She knows what it’s like to walk into a meeting and be the only woman, the only person of color, or the only person with a disability (Autism) in the room. Caeley has been supported by and has been the support system for countless others in this community. She’s heard stories from her friends and fellow students about their own experiences trying to break into STEM fields, personal struggles, and hardships; and she wanted to do something about it.

Along the way, Caeley learned that this disparity went deeper and further than she ever could have imagined. It wasn’t just gender, but race, disability, and socioeconomic status. She knew that she couldn’t fix every barrier preventing girls from pursuing STEM careers, but even if she could lower them to be slightly more accessible, it would make a difference. So, that’s what Caeley worked towards, with a larger focus on the socioeconomic barriers.

Our team takes every opportunity to talk with educators to learn about their struggles in and out of the classroom. We ask them what our organization can do to serve them and their students with the greatest benefit. Caeley is an engineer by degree, not a teacher, and is no longer a student. It’s important to continually recognize that we don’t know what we don’t know, so our team relies on the partnerships and community of educators and students that we’ve built over the last four years to influence our decisions and programs as we move forward.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Reinvented Inc. is based in Melbourne, FL so our number one recommendation is definitely visiting Kennedy Space Center. Give yourself the whole day to ‘space out’ and learn more about the past, present, and future of space exploration. If you’re lucky, you might even get to see a rocket launch, which is a really incredible experience! Our founder is also a huge fan of the beaches on the Space Coast. We suggest keeping an eye on the water and look for dolphins, and check out the shoreline for some really cool sea shells.

While this might not be a ‘vacation’ stop, since we are a STEM-centric organization we are big fans of our local makerspace here in Melbourne. Our founder loved working in the woodshed or using their laser cutter and CNC for some fun projects.

This month, however, our founder moved out to Austin, TX and is still very new to the area. So any suggestions for this new area are welcome!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This story should absolutely be dedicated to (1) our incredible team of volunteers and (2) everyone who has supported our nonprofit organization since it’s inception. Without both of these awesome groups of people, Reinvented would not only simply not exist, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as impactful as it’s been in the past four years. Our volunteers put in more hours than we can count, their hardworking and dedication to inspiring and empowering the next generation of girls in STEM is unmatched. Our supporters are the ones who allow us to keep doing what we are doing. Whether they’ve made a donation to our organization, read our magazine, or help us grow our network through partnership introductions, their passion for our mission is truly inspirational.

Website: https://www.reinventedmagazine.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reinventedmagazine/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caeleylooney

Twitter: https://twitter.com/reinventedmag

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReinventedMagazine/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ZVqfIf-KGeGyct0HeXdGA

Other: https://www.instagram.com/caeleystems