FIRST has $8 Million?!? What did I miss?

[Tom Line]

I hear a lot of people saying things like this. I think it primarily has to do with the fact that most folks simply don't deal with numbers that large on a daily basis, so when they see a number like that (in the millions) it's a bit shocking.

It's like looking at the engine plant that I work at. Yep. We "bring in" close to a billion a year. People might look at our balance sheet at any one time and go "omg, they're rich". What they don't tend to realize is that we send out MORE than that each year to purchase all the stuff it takes to run. The remainder is made up by corporate profit - equatable to the donations FIRST gets from corporate sponsers.

A billion might sound like a "big" number - but when refurbishing an assembly line in your plant to turn out a new product costs upwards of $300 million, and you'll only use that refurbished line for 3-5 years before you have to do it all over again.... well... it starts to bring the numbers more into perspective. One decent "wage" including benefits is $75k a year. So employing just 14 people eats $1 million a year. FOURTEEN PEOPLE. We employ, just at our plant, nearly 1500.

You think utilities on the order of $300 - $400 a month are expensive at your four person house? Try a 1500 person house - with machinery running 24x7.

I understand FIRST isn't a manufacturing organization, but they have their expenses too. Broadcasts, production, planning, travel, manufacturing, legal, etc.

Hopefully this gives folks a little insight into what it actually takes to run a business.

While I'm at it, I'll also point out that this is all money that goes back into the LOCAL economy. So getting even a small production plant is a huge deal. Likewise, losing one to overseas competition is even a bigger deal. But that's another conversation entirely