Is The Da Vinci Center a Big Boondoggle or Just Suffering Growing Pains? Big Salaries, Public Money, Meager Results

The Da Vinci website. Is it a Mickey Mouse operation?

Dec. 26, 2025

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

The Da Vinci Science Center made huge promises before it moved from Cedar Crest College to downtown Allentown.

In its first year, it fell dramatically short. There is a lot to look at with this potential boondoggle, so I’ll hit on just a few points today.

Here’s a Da Vinci comment from 2021 in a press release about receiving $3 million of federal taxpayers’ money:

“Upon opening to the public in 2024, the Science Center will attract 400,000 visitors to downtown Allentown annually and is forecast to generate more than $33,000,000 in economic output and support 287 full-time jobs.”

Beware of projections, especially when they include pseudo-precision: 287 jobs?

I asked Da Vinci early this week what attendance actually was in Year One at the $75 million science center 815 W. Hamilton St. in downtown Allentown.

The response: “Our total attendance and participation for the first year was approximately 160,000.”

So that’s a 60% shortfall, and note, the total number does not mean 160,000 people went to the center. It may include “outreach.”

Then consider that in 2022-23, the Center reported “total participation” of 161,476 at the old Cedar Crest College site. So tens of millions of dollars were spent on the move, much of it public funds, and there was no increase. Maybe a small decline.

Something else truly odd: In January 2025, a Morning Call story had an adjusted projection for Year One: 250,000 to 300,000, deemed “slightly below” the 400,000 estimate. Yet the final number was 160,000.

So did the numbers fall off a cliff midway through the fiscal year, or was this another ridiculous projection? Are the people making projections being held accountable?

As I’ve noted before, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia draws 800,000 or so annually, in a big city and big metropolitan area. The Da Vinci center projected drawing about half of that in a much smaller area. At one 2021 meeting, the center’s “brain trust” even compared their proposal to the Philadelphia museum.

In addition to the federal money, Da Vinci also secured financing from the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority (ANIZDA) and $12 million of state funds from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, a font of public money that taxpayers should keep an eye on. There were also private donations.

Now, consider salaries. From the Da Vinci Discovery Center’s Form 990, (their tax return) provided by ProPublica, for the tax year ending June 30, 2024:

— Linda Erickson, the executive director and thus the founder of this feast, was paid $197,852. She will retire in June.

— Four other employees were making six-figure salaries, for a total, including Erickson, of $713,741 for the top five. For a thriving enterprise, not a big deal, but a lot of money to generate a big shortfall.

Consider this: At $24 for a full-price admission, about 30,000 people would have to visit to cover the total cost of the top five. Da Vinci doesn’t bring in that many paying customers in two months.

I do not know if all of The Big Five remain on the payroll. The latest Form 990 is not public yet.

The center’s Board of Trustees and the politicians who helped send public dollars to Da Vinci need to take a hard look at what’s going on.

We have enough boondoggles in the Lehigh Valley, including PBS39 sitting on $80 million while pleading for public money, and the Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle, which has boondoggled beyond belief.

It’s time for the people who control the Da Vinci center to take a stand and set this place right.

Here is a list of board members listed on Da Vinci’s website. If you know any of them, ask them what is going on and what is being done to turn the place around:

Chairman

Daniel C. Bosket, Director, Community Action Development Corporation of Allentown

Vice Chairman

Stephanie Sherry, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Olympus Corporation of the Americas

Secretary

Rex Schultz, President, Swagelok Allentown

Treasurer

Michael J. Stoudt Jr., CPA, Managing Partner, Allentown Office, RKI, LLC

Chief Executive Officer

Lin Erickson, Executive Director and CEO, Da Vinci Science Center

Trustees

Judy Belaires, Community Leader
Dr. Carol D. Birks, Superintendent, Allentown School District
Eric Bus, Operations Manager, ATAS International, Inc.
Douglas S. Downing, Vice President/Commercial Banking Team Leader, Fulton Bank
W. Beall Fowler, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Physics, Lehigh University
Jack Gross, Esq., Partner, Gross McGinley Attorneys at Law
Ed Harakel, Vice President of Field Operations, PPL Coporation
Debra H. Lamb, Vice President of Development, Lehigh Valley Children’s Centers, Retired
Dr. Maureen P. Leeson, Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer, Bethlehem Area School District
Lisa Liddington, Vice President, Lehigh Valley Hospital, 17th Street
James E. McLean, WMS, Senior Vice President, Steel Valley Wealth Strategies, Raymond James
Elizabeth M. Meade, Ph.D., President, Cedar Crest College
Richard Milker, Senior Vice President of Product and Commercialization, Stuffed Puffs
Amanda Morton, Director Channel Marketing, Lutron Electronics
Bridget O’Connell, Ed.D., Superintendent, Palisades School District
Donald A. Outing, Ph.D., Vice President for Equity and Community, University Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Lehigh University
Terrence Sullivan, Head of Government Affairs, Shift4
William K. Velekei, CPA, CFP®, Partner, Mariner Wealth Advisors
Jill Walter, Director – Operations South Region, UGI Utilities, Inc.
Stephen P. Zieniewicz, MPH, FACHE, Healthcare Executive, Community Member

Emeritus Trustees

J. Robert Lovett, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Retired, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
Frank K. Schweighardt, Ph.D., Global Manager of Process Analytical, Retired, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.
Vincent Sorgi, President & CEO, PPL Corp.

Honorary Trustees

Pat Browne, Secretary of PA Dept. of Revenue
Heather Browne, Community Leader

That’s all for today. Later, some reasons attendance didn’t jump, based on complaints from people who have actually been to the Center.