[Kit Gerhart]

I had the chance to congratulate Andy when his winning of the Woodie Flowers award was announced, but want to congratulate him here as well. Andy has done so much to make TechnoKats what the team is today. He joined the team in 1998. and those who were around at the time know that the previous few years were not good ones for our team. Andy's various skills, including engineering, game strategy, and coaching helped us win the Championship in '98. There were others, to be sure, including Mark Coors who designed the arm on the machine, and Tim Railey, the team's lead teacher since 1992. Also we had an awesome driver and equally awesome button pusher, and many other people too numerous to mention who contributed to our success in '98. Still, Andy was one of the most important people in our competition success in '98 and subsequent years, and Andy may well have done more to "bring the team together" than any other person after some not-so-good years for our team.

Since then, Andy has turned TechnoKats in a team known throughout the FIRST community for helping other teams. He publishes our designs, gives away spare parts to other teams who need them, and helps new teams get started, and not just those near Kokomo, Indiana. Also, on a number of occasions he has been seen in other teams' pits helping them fix their robots when they need and want help. Andy is responsible for Kokomo's remote kickoff, and the list of his contributions to the FIRST community goes on.

Andy, you deserved it, and DJ Fluck deserves lots of credit for presenting Andy's case well enough to win out over all those other good candidates whose cases were presented in that pile of letters the judges had to go through.