About Guidestar Forms
President and founder of Guidestar Forms, LLC, Dr. Fredric Messing, was discussing administrative issues with the Director of Childhood Education of a Washington, DC, preschool. She asked for advice on how to reduce the labor intensive effort associated with keeping track of student and staff forms. Dr. Messing developed a web-based automated electronic forms service and realized that other schools and child care centers had similar issues which would benefit from the service. By pooling together a large number of small institutions the service could be provided at an easily affordable price.
Dr. Messing spent 20 years as a Federal Government contractor helping agencies including FAA, IRS, USAID, USAF, VBA, and NASA solve business problems and improve productivity by leveraging information technology. His efforts were recognized with the NASA Astronauts Personal Achievement Award, NASA Manned Flight Awareness Honoree award, National Partnership for Reinventing Government Hammer Award, and the Federal Computer Week Federal 100 Award. Guidestar Forms brings these same skills to schools and child care centers.
Dr. Messing also had an academic career as a Research Fellow at Cornell University; Visiting Scientist at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Laboratory; Associate Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University; Lecturer in Physics at University of Maryland; Adjunct Professor of Physics at Marymount University; Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the US Naval Academy; and guest lecturer on rocket science at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Temple Sinai Nursery School, Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the Nation's Capital, Schilit Nursery School, and Clara Barton Center for Children. He has been a guest speaker at conferences and research institutions in the USA, UK, Italy, Germany, and Israel. Dr. Messing co-authored 57 papers on elementary particle physics in refereed professional journals.
Here are some thank you notes Dr. Messing received from preschool children and teachers and some photographs of satellite and Mars rover models the children built after his presentation.