This month marks her ten years of service for Vice President of Play and Learning, Caitlin Luttjohann, and it is hard to overstate the impact she’s had on our programs, exhibits, team, and the thousands of children and families who have walked through our doors in the past decade!

Maybe it was a field trip that somehow made engineering feel like recess. Maybe it was an exhibit that your child played with for hours. Maybe it was an online program that popped up in your living room during the hardest months of 2020. Maybe it was just a moment when a silly grown-up gave you permission to try, fail, and try again. Those moments, plus dynamite spreadsheet design, national conference presentations, and countless other duties as assigned have defined Caitlin’s ten years.

Caitlin joined the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center as an educator, bringing a degree in industrial engineering and experience from the Flint Hills Discovery Center. If any one thing defines Caitlin’s professional journey it’s willingness to employ the engineering design process: build, test, improve, in all aspects of her work. She’s always been the first to raise her hand, pitch in, and lean a new skill. That willingness is how she grew from Educator to Director of Education to Vice President of Play and Learning. It is also how she has shaped nearly every aspect of the visitor experience along the way.

As she shared in an alumni profile from Kansas State University, her interest in engineering began with a childhood Roller Coaster Tycoon mishap that left her wondering how something could be both safe and fun. That question still guides her work today as she designs experiences that invite children to experiment, adjust, and try again.

During the uncertainty of COVID, Caitlin designed hundreds of online educational programs to ensure families could continue learning and playing together at home. She built systems that help us measure and improve our impact, strengthened our exhibit development process, and cultivated a culture where curiosity and problem solving are part of daily life. She loves math, nerdy challenges, and the dream of one day building a teddy bear roller coaster in the museum, but what she has truly built is a place where kids see that engineering, creativity, and persistence belong to them.

Ten years ago, she arrived ready to teach. Today, she helps lead the vision for play and learning at the Discovery Center, still the same silly grown-up who reminds kids and coworkers alike that it is okay to try, to fail, and to keep going.

Happy 10 years, Caitlin!