[Martinez]

FIRST to me is like a technical version of the Boy Scouts. It was started by one man with the vision of molding his day's youth, now spreading to almost every city in the world. I think the number one reason is a lack of Regionals Internationally. After the Canadian Regional, the number of teams practically exploded. Travel cost is a huge budget item so having a near by competition always helps. When your accross the pond, doublly so. Don't forget, there are alot of DoD dependents in Europe so its not like we are turning our back on the good old US of A!