Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Does your team have any alumni who have gone on to pursue careers in science, math, engineering or technical fields, and who are now back mentoring your team?

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yes...

Kenny Ardizone, who is widely known in the FIRST community for SOAP... has graduated from my high school, went to college and now a software engineer at Motorola.

-Arefin.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

We have two that I know of...
he is Carl Agnew (Cagnew). He is an alumni of West Lafayette and he came back as a mentor my freshman year. He is now our Tech coordinator and is a Junior at Purdue.
and we also have a "consultant" for the electronics team. that would be Jtosh (aka Oneangrydwarf). He helps me and the EPPICS sub-sub-team with the ideas and problems that we have.

(EPPICS = Electronics, Pnuematics, Programming, and Integrated Control Systems)

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yes, ME! I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona and I am still very actively involved in 696.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

I'm amazed that college students can find the time to come back and mentor a FIRST team... that's a large time committment...

but for this thread I'm really interested in knowing how many teams have FIRST alumni mentors working with them who have already graduated from college and are now employed in scientific, engineering or technical careers.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yes.

One very dedicated member of our team, Steve, is currently working at the NSA (that'd be in MD). However, he came back to us (that'd be NY) for the first two weeks of this year's build season and will be back Monday to be with us for the last two weeks.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

on our team we have a couple mentors who are former highschool FIRST members, but they weren't on our team in highschool, but they are with us now.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

We have quite a few who were former students who returned to be mentors. We currently have 3 mentors and 1 teacher like this: two mentors and the teacher who were former Wildstang students and myself who was a member of team 74 in high school. There's also at least 3 other mentors who have helped in past years that were on Wildstang in high school who weren't able to commit to it this year for various reasons. With the exception of our returning teacher they've all been engineers at Motorola.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 188 is proud to have SlimBoJones (Shawn Lim) back on our team. Shawn went from student, to college on a FIRST scholarship then started his own business an now mentors and sponsors our team.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 25 has a bunch of them- and you know some of them-
Shaun McNulty- rookie in 1997
Big Mike Schroeder - rookie in 1999
Mario Azar- rookie from 1998 (now in Az.)
George Horvath- rookie from 2000
Joe Clukies- rookie from 2000
Kristina Evanouskas- rookie from 1999 ?
Kim Bochert- rookie in 2000
plus a bunch of others who drop over when they are in town.
Not all are in engineering curricula but all are valuable members of our team. We make special arrangements so they can be a part of the action with our parents and mentors.

And now we have their brothers and sisters!! (believe it- we have a Little Schroeder)

Nobody leaves our team without permission.....

WC :cool:


(BTW- team 25 has graduated 43 students as of 2004- 73% went on to technical fields across the country )

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

RAGE has numerous college-age alums back working with us as mentors. We have one alum mentor who is interning as an engineer, and one alum who is a project engineer who is back now. In addition one alum went on to become a tech ed teacher and is now back with the team.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Many team in FIRST are too young to have their members do this.

Shannon Schnepp founded Team 461 with Mr. Steve Florence. I consider her a member of the team no matter what highschool she went to. Though she doesn't mentor us specifically, she's working with the regional committee (I think) and comes back to visit. She's a great example of a role model for a lot of us.

- Genia

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Shannon was actualy a member of team 68 truck town thunder when she was in high school, went to purdue, did the 461 thing, and is now back up in michigan helping with team rush i believe.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

We use to have a alumni mentor...until he got his own team. :rolleyes: (DJ) But hey, I think he know's a thing or two about how to run a team by now...GO 1646!

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yep. We did it. My girlfriend Monica and I started a rookie team this year. Things have been wonderful. We have a very dedicated group of students. We are out of Flint, MI. She works for GM and I work for Stryker Medical.

Our team has only college mentors running the show. We have sponsors, but no engineers or highschool teachers to speak of. This is by our design.

Kettering is one of our sponsors, and part of our home. They have been generous enough to give us a place to work and access to machines.

We have picked up other FIRST alumni in A-section (Kettering: 3 months of school, 3 months of work, non stop for 5 years with alternating sections of A and B) who are also assisting the team.

It can be done! And, it can be done well! See you at the Detroit regional, and hopefully Nationals!

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Good call. I remember her saying that now. ;). I tried. She's with us in spirit.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Not at this point, but we are looking to have a few next year, ummm me. Seeing that this is my Senior year in high school and I will be going to coledge in the fall I would certainly hope I can come back to my team.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

That's why I was curious how many were out there. It would only apply to teams who are in their 6th year or older... If a student joined as a senior in high school in the team's rookie year, completed four years of college and got a job in a science/engg/technical career, then came back to mentor this year, the team would need to be 6 years old. If someone joined the team as a freshman, then the team would need to be 9 years old this year...

(I'm not including college mentors in this thread, just curious about "professional" mentors...)

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 1646 has a mentor who was part of the origional 461 lineup (team sherbert WHAT WHAT!) He graduated from purdue and came back to rock out with the new rookie team in town, his name is Jorge.

Team 461 also has Jerry Budd who is a former college mentor who went on to join 461 as a consultant after graduating.

Chris Noble was on team 71 in high school, 461 in college and now with the robo devil in indianapolis now that he is out in the real world.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 330 has two mentors who started with the team as high school students and are now working locally as technical professionals. One is CD personality Joe Ross, the other is his buddy Zac. They are also the ENTIRE Hope Chapel Academy class of 1999. I don't know of many teams that can say they had an entire graduating class on the team let alone having them back as mentors years later. Both are making significant technical contributions to the team and we're glad to have them back.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 1208 has two graduates who now mentor our team. Taylor Stooke, software engineer, and Tim Pool, Geology Major.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Cyber Blue has one alumni, David Kelly, that just never left and has now become our website mentor. We've also had a few other alumni like Mike Long from 1024 who have gone on to help mentor other teams.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 126 has many high school students that return as adult mentors. Not only do they return as mentors but there have been at least 8 people that have worked at Nypro in an engineering discipline. This number does not include the numerous high school students that have worked at Nypro while attending college. We currently have 3 full-time project engineers that work at Nypro and help the FIRST team. We have an english teacher at Clinton High that was once a student and now a mentor. Additionally, we have had other students become mentors of other teams. FIRST has become an integral part of this community and many students continue with FIRST after high school.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team 1275 is EXTREMELY lucky to have a FIRST alumnus as our mentor - Vince Lau the all-knowing! (hehe, Vince are you reading this?). However, he's not an alumnus of our team, seeing as this is only our second year. Compared to other mentor, it's wonderful to have mentors that are FIRST alumni because they know so much about what the competition is about, both in terms of the time commitment and the level of competition, but also in terms of the spirit of the competition.

Good luck to all teams! (14 days left... EEK.)

Addy.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Team007 is in its 9th year. Alumnus Matt Leese-UFH is mentoring Team 340 and helping the Rochester regional. Steve Shade has graduated college and is mentoring Team 1111. James Gurganus is in grad school at Univ. of MD-Baltimore Co. and still returns to Team007 to mentor, as well as a FLL team. During the Jan.college break, former team members Ryan Levin and Chris Hubicki both came back for more than a week. Two others who graduated 3 years ago, helped us set up at the kickoff.
They are all engineers or are studying engineering and were touched by FIRST. The team stays in touch by email and newsletters and wants to track the alums.
Newer teams should set up some way to do this now. Great thread Kathie.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Our mentor layout is just alumni.

You have me 45 alum (6th year)
Matt Adams...who most of you know (112 and 461 alum) (6th year)
Jorge (member of the original 461 team as Josh said) (6th year, I think??)
Nick Seidl, 461 and 448 alum (6th or 7th year)
other Matt A in his 5th year (461 alum)
Isaac, 2nd year (461 alum)
Tyler (1294, 949 alum) 3rd rookie team in 3 years
Julie (another original 461 member 5th or 6th year I believe)

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

I'd like to give a big shout- out to recent Team 1351 and Mitty graduates Phil and Dane, who come back to mentor electronics and programming between 3 and 5 days a week in- season. It's too bad the US isn't a monarchy, because they rule.

MG

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

MOE has Brian Lucas back as a mentor and also Andrea Tribo. Also we have Jake Warren back sometimes to help when ever he can. All of the Alumni Mentors we have are very valuable to our team because of there experience as a student so they know what it is like to still be a student and that makes them easier to work with sometimes.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

[ADD]HEY! It's that dog from Fraggle Rock in your avitar![/ADD]

Anyway, yes, we have numerous engineering and other students come back. Infact, we have many drive 2 hours to get to a weekend meeting (MikeT). Some live here still and go to college nearby (GregC).

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yes, it's Sprocket. I have a real dog named Dakotah who looks very much like him (a bearded collie). And since RAGE manufactures sprockets, I thought it represented me well. And now I hope all of you have the Fraggle Rock song stuck in your head like I do! :p

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Yeah. We've got a couple that returned last year and are mentoring again this year, but they hang out with the Engineering team.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

Our team has already had many come back from their busy college lives to mentor us. This is only occassional however, so the alumni who came back could still not be considered mentors. This is bound to change as several of our seniors last year kept great enthusiasm in the FIRST events and promised return.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

yep, me

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

I'm a rookie mentor this year on Team 1038, the Thunderhawks. I am using this project as my Senior Design Project. I work about 50 hours a week as a Electronic Tech/Assembler, while going to school two nights a week, and working on the robot 3 nights a week. Long, tiring, but well worth it. After the first night I was hooked and knew I would be doing this every year from now on.

I never knew that there was something that would blend my love of teaching and inspiring, with my love of engineering. I am so glad I found FIRST

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

our team has 4 people who are alumni, now working as engineers and still mentoring the team. three of whom attend kettering university, and are also salaried (not hourly or contract) employees at GM... myself included.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

I myself am an Alumni Member amongst many others from T522, Most of the Alumni body have persued a job oppurtunity in the MTA - Metropolitan Transportation Authroity aka New York City Transit in doing many things such as using Machining Equipment, Building, Repairing, Maintaining many different items. I can't speak for the rest of the body when it comes to making frequent visits to the team and school and assisting the team and sharing knowledge partially becuase me and many other members have different shifts and different jobs within the Authority.

Re: Teams with Alumni Mentors
 

I graduated from team 326 and am now majoring in electrical engineering at Wayne state university