General Motors

[joni mcmash]

I am interesting to know the relation between General Motors and FIRST.
Why you think that General Motor donates a lot of money for FIRST teams?
What is this award: General Motors Industrial Design Award?
Do General Motors give others things that are not money like hardware or worker that work and receive money from General Motors to volunteer in the FIRST competitions?
How is the person (I think in General Motors) that decides to what teams donate some money?

[mikegrundvig]

I only know that we have a GM engineer as a mentor on our team and he was able to get us some money from them for which we are very thankful. I don't know if we would have been able to get the donation without him, I do know that he was instrumental in it.

-Mike

[GDG 2337]

General Motors Vice Chairman Tom Stevens (now retired) has been on the Board of Directors for FIRST since at least 2002. You can find and read his biography on the FIRST website.
He is the reason teams like 65, 66 and 67 exist. He is also the originator of First Tech Challenge. Many GM employees (hourly and salary) are current or former members or mentors on the FIRST family of teams.
Most of the Founding Sponsors contribute heavily to teams and have awards named after them. Information on individual Awards can be found in the Awards section of the Game Manual.
As Mike stated, we are thankful that GM contributes to our team.