Finding a Mentor

[treffk]

I agree with finding people how have ties to the team members already. Our rookie year we had:

Coach - Science teacher
Mentor - Her mechanically inclined husband
Mentor - Coach's friend who worked as an engineer for Honeywell
Mentor - Coach's friend who worked as an engineer for Northrup Grumman
Mentor - My mom who focused on the business side
Mentor - Father of a student/Family of the coach who understood programming

We also had help that year from team 1108, our ties to that team besides being in the same general area is I had an aunt who mentored the team and a cousin on the team.

Since then we have had businesses who work with the Regional Directors and how Senior Mentor and VISTA to identify employees who want to volunteer and match them up with local teams in need. Most areas have a list of people with specific skills that they can call upon to help a rookie team or even a veteran team that is struggling. It never hurts to send them a quick email and see if they have any contacts.