[Greg McKaskle]

You have already received some good advice and a few tales of similar challenges. Let me add that my family lives in Lubbock and nearby areas in West Texas. I've had the pleasure of working with team 1817 a number of times over the last few years and have noticed capable teams from Midland, Del Rio, and even Van Horn. I hope that you are able to arrange for one or more kick-off builds, and if so, I'd love to help. I suspect that a number of NI engineers can assist as well. Unfortunately, the eight hour drive each way means we cannot be primary mentors.

Please contact me with details and any other issues you think we may be able to assist with.

As for finding mentors, I"m not sure what you've tried, but there are tons of energy companies, oil and wind, and their engineers are distributed throughout the region. Personally, one of the most inspiring technical people I grew up with was a shade-tree mechanic and responsible for keeping the local cotton gin operating. He certainly wasn't a trained engineer, but with the Chilton manual for any automobile ever made, he could work miracles and simultaneously explain what was wrong and how to keep it from happening again. My point is that technical inspiration doesn't have to come solely from college students or professional engineers, especially when you are looking to start that many teams.

Greg McKaskle