[Chris Fultz]

OK, been thinking on this one for awhile, and I cannot hold back any more.

This may come as a news flash to many of you, but most businesses in the US, and the world, are in business to make money. That is not a bad thing, in fact, it is a very good thing. And, as a business, they are responsible to their owners (shareholders) to spend their money wisely and earn a decent return on it.

Most businesses also have requests from many, many organizations that could use their money to do good things. United Way, Boy Scouts, Shelters, and on and on. So how do they choose where to put their money? Some of it is given purely as a charitable contribution. No strings attached. No recognition expected. A certain portion of annual budgets are set aside for such purposes and are part of being a good community member.

But FIRST is different. FIRST is not a charity. FIRST, for many companies, is an investment in the future. It is a source of engineers and techncians. It is a place to make your company known to some of the brightest stars so that they will want to come and work for you when they get out of school. It is a way for companies to secure their future when the engineering work force continues to shrink. And, if companies do not feel they are getting any value out of their sponsorship (and value can be defined in many ways), then they will find somewhere else to spend their money.

Rolls-Royce is very proud of the teams it sponsors (7), and hopes that the teams are also proud to be a part of the Rolls-Royce family. One way that a team can show that is to advertise our name and have Rolls-Royce announced as a sponsor at the competitions. We greatly appreciate it when they do.


* note: I work for Rolls-Royce, and am part of the committee that determines our support for FIRST teams each year.