[Kit Gerhart]

As a member of one of the few ten year teams, it is easy to envision a number of things that can result in a team "going out of business." We have been very lucky in having the same corporate sponsor for the ten years. We have had an adequate number of engineers, working mostly on their own time, and we have had enough teachers to keep our team running. Since 1998 we have had our own workshop in a warehouse owned by the local electric utility.

FIRST is expensive, it requires teachers and engineers willing to give up most of their spare time for 3-4 months of the year, and it requires the support of the school board. We have been lucky in having all these factors remain in place "for the duration."

Unfortunately, FIRST, even if you have a successful team, doesn't have the community support of, say, high school football. It takes work from many different directions to keep a team together for a long time. If we can get our communities as excited about FIRST as they are about sports, that would be great. We haven't gotten there yet.