Is business too overlooked by FIRST?

[Mr V]

I fully agree that FIRST headquarters needs to put more emphasis on the other aspects of FRC. The fact is that the constant hype about making the students into engineers and students working with professional engineers make recruiting team members interested in other aspects of the program and mentors who aren't engineers into the program.

A couple of years ago we were at an event and the father of one of the students was next to me down in spirit alley cheering for the team. He commented that this was so great and quite the mind blowing experience. He then said he wished he could be involved but sadly he was not an engineer he was the manager of a bank branch. I said great that is what we need I've got more engineers than I can shake a stick at and no one to help the team write a business plan.

Sure the country needs more engineers but we need competent people to fill many other jobs in society. Fact is if the world was full of engineers we would have never accomplished anything. You need at least one person with a gun to shoot the engineer so we can get on with the process of building something. It also helps to have people who handle finances, marketing and operations, all things that FRC can allow students to experience if they and potential mentors know of the opportunities.