Fountain Hills resident Vicky Derksen is a well-known and active community member.

She has taken on a new role as project development manager for the International Dark Sky Discovery Center, citing her experience working with Dori Wittrig, president and designated broker with RE-MAX Sun Properties.

Derksen joined the RE-MAX team as Wittrig’s executive assistant. With guidance from Wittrig, Derksen became proficient in social media marketing strategies and many other skills while quickly growing into the role of the company’s social media marketing director.

“She (Derksen) did a great job of understanding what our needs were,” Wittrig said. “Her love for Fountain Hills was one of the reasons I hired her in the first place. We met in my first class of the Leadership Academy. Very few communities in the country have organizations that help promote and grow diverse interests with the community and encourage volunteers to be successful like Fountain Hills does.”

Derksen was always interested in the night sky. She grew up in Idaho and as a child was fascinated with stars and all things astronomical.

She was first introduced to the International Dark Sky community at the Leadership Academy. Her new role as project development manager is to oversee fundraising and working directly with architects and designers to work toward building the new discovery center.

“Our idea grew from a small observatory to a 15,000-square-foot facility which we will open to the public and available for educational purposes,” Derksen said. “The center will have research-grade telescope, observatory, planetarium and immersion zone.”

The project was first put into place around the same time the COVID-19 pandemic started. Fundraising came to a halt just as the team began to building momentum.

It will cost roughly $18 million to complete the project, but fundraising was put on hold for a period of time.

Derksen said there is still a lot of fundraising left to accomplish, but after receiving a $2.5 million allocation in the Arizona state budget, the team is hopeful and excited for progress to begin again, Derksen said.

For more information on Fountain Hills Dark Sky Association go to fhdarksky.com. The discovery center’s website is darkskycenter.org.