**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST on the Floor of the US House of Representatives

[Pat Fairbank]

Greetings Teams:

FIRST has received a very unique honor and opportunity.

Representative Rob Simmons (CT-2nd) has offered to make a statement about FIRST on the floor of the US House of Representatives. This statement will focus on FIRST as one way of solving the shortage of engineering and technical students in US Colleges and Universities.

The current plan is to have Rep. Simmons direct his colleagues to the FIRST web site. He will ask his colleagues to explore if all of the schools in their congressional districts have FIRST teams, and if not, to ask the schools to look at programs like FIRST. Rep. Simmons’ office has already contacted other FIRST supporters in the House of Representatives, including Charlie Bass (NH-2nd), Jim Langevin (RI-2nd), Tom Price (GA-6th) and Tim Ryan (OH-17th). You may remember that Rep. Langevin spoke at the Boston Regional and at the Championship event.

But we need YOUR help to make this bigger and better! If you have already contacted your elected officials in Congress (remember Dean’s homework?) we ask that you ask those officials to contact Rep. Simmons’ office in Washington to be part of the group that stands with Rep. Simmons as he reads his statement.

Rep. Simmons’ statement is currently planned for Thursday June 22nd in the late morning, however, congressional schedules are very unpredictable, and this date and time may change.

We would like to thank FRC Team 236, the Techno-Ticks from Lyme-Old Lyme High School in Connecticut who has worked very closely with Rep. Simmons in arranging this very special honor.

If you have any questions, please contact Mike Sperber (FIRST Senior Mentor, CT) at msperber@usfirst.org who is working with Team 236 to coordinate this effort. Please let Mike know which Representative(s) you have contacted (please include your team number), so he can provide a list to Rep. Simmons' office.

Thank you all.

Go Teams!