Rest in Peace, Mark Koors

[Andy_Baker]

Some sad news from Kokomo, Indiana:

Mark Koors passed away yesterday, Sunday, August 30, 2020. His wife and family were at his side. He suffered from ALS.

Mark was a quiet, brilliant man, inspiring many through his inventions at GM and Delphi and his volunteering within the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Mark and I both worked at Delco Electronics (part of GM, then Delphi) and were 1st year mentors on the TechnoKats (FRC45) when we won the FIRST Championships in 1998. I met Mark at a TechnoKats meeting in the fall of 1997.

In 2004, Mark and I co-founded AndyMark. We ran the business out of our houses until 2007 and opened an office to grow the company. Mark designed all of AndyMark’s mecanum wheels and early planetary gearboxes. He also designed AndyMark’s “Trick Wheel” which is the predecessor to many of today’s commercially available omni wheels. Mark designed the AndyMark FRC Field Perimeter, which is used by many events and STEM centers today.

If you were to look at early AndyMark CAD models of gearboxes, you could easily tell which ones were Mark’s designs and which ones were mine. Mark’s gears all had complete CAD, with each gear tooth modeled. My CADded gears were just lazy cylinders. We would poke each other about that.

While at Delphi, Mark created many cool inventions and helped mentor many young engineers along the way.

Many of you may know Mark, as he was an FTA (FIRST Technical Advisor) for FRC events ever since the beginning of FTAs in 2007. For many events, Mark served as their FTA each year. It’s likely that he was an FTA at an event you attended. Mark was also a Championship FTA since 2007.

Mark’s legacy impacted many people around the world. Automobiles work better because of Mark’s work at Delphi and the FIRST community is a better place due to Mark. Mark retired from AndyMark in 2016 and enjoyed his free time with his wife, children, and grandchildren. While retired and confined to a wheelchair, Mark still mentored TechnoKats this past year as they built a robot for Infinite Recharge.

Personally, I learned a ton of things from Mark. No one was better at coming up with a quick, workable prototype. We would be talking about a concept of a design, and he would then show us how that concept worked within a few hours. He was comfortable in a machine shop, walking from station to station, helping students and mentors fabricate parts properly.

Mark always had a smile on his face and had time to listen to what you were saying. He loved to help anyone in need.

He was awarded FIRST Volunteer of the Year at the 2007 FIRST Championship, and the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award at the 2006 Boilermaker Regional.

If you knew Mark, please join me in adding a story to this thread. Maybe he helped you fix your broken robot. Maybe he showed you a trick on how to remove a machine key from your motor shaft. Maybe he sat and listened to you describing your team goals. Maybe he told you a story about one of his many mission trips to Haiti. Maybe you both worked a long 14-hour day as key volunteers. Maybe you just sat and talked about something other than robots. Maybe you will miss him too.

Goodbye, my friend.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[IndySam]

Mark was a mentor, a boss and a friend. He will be sorely missed.

Gonna take a while to process this loss.

Short story.
For the 2012 game Rebound Rumble Mark invented a cool shooter that we called the Flingapult. It was a brilliant design that eliminated the problems with compression differences in the game pieces that were so problematic to most teams. I remember when he showed me the prototype he was working on. I was amazed.
He freely shared all his CAD and design ideas with me and with that my team was able to design one of the best robots we ever built.
It was typical of his generosity that he freely shared his ideas.

RIP my friend.

[Tyler_Olds]

I personally worked with Mark at dozens of events in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Championships, IRI and more. Mark was always there for the teams and was an absolute genuine individual. I will always remember getting lost in the middle of Minneapolis together trying to find a famous German restaurant and driving Mark crazy when I announced special fake 50% off AndyMark codes at events. Thank you for your service Mark and I will miss you.

[Taylor]

Mark was a loving Grandpa, a brilliant engineer, and an inspiring mentor.
We named our 2010 robot Mark Koors, in honor of all the work he did, seemingly without getting (or seeking) credit.
He was immensely proud of his Chevy Volt.
I can’t pass a windmill without thinking of Mark.
He was genuinely interested in whatever you had to say to him, and stopped whatever he was doing to listen.
My first official FRC event, I got to watch Andy present Mark with the WFFA. I knew both of them, but not particularly well, at that point. There was still no doubt the Award was given to the right mentor.
He possessed the world’s strongest hands.
He was humble, hard-working, the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Without his assistance, we would not have started the CAGE Match, and we absolutely wouldn’t have continued it. (He and Andy were the first recipients of the AAoA trophy).
My wife would always seek him out at events because she knew he would talk about his grandkids and not robots.
It was an honor to know him, it will be a joy to remember him.
Rest easy.

[RoboMom]

Mark was a good listener to those of us who didn’t want to talk about just robots over dinner after an event. It was always a pleasure to see him and hear what he was up to. ALS is an awful disease. I will miss him too.

[Karthik]

FIRST was so much smaller in the late 90s and early 00s. The community felt like everyone knew each other. And within this small community, there were a handful of rockstar engineers that stood out for their genius and innovative designs. As a high school / college student, these people were such major sources of inspiration. Mark Koors was a part of that group. It was always so cool to talk to him at Champs and learn about what he had come up with each season.

Mark’s legacy is long. He will be missed. RIP

[Michael_Corsetto]

Mark was an amazing man. Our community is indebted to him and the ways he moved FRC forward.

I got to chat with him during a few of those Saturday evening gatherings at champs. He told me about some of the really cool and meaningful work he did in Haiti. I remember being impressed that someone who clearly gave so much to the FIRST community still had more to give.

Mark’s life of service has left a lasting impact. RIP.

-Mike

PS. Andy, thank you for sharing some of Mark’s story here. Our thoughts to you and the rest of the AM family.

[Wayne_Doenges]

FRC Team 1501 sends it’s condolences to Marks family, friends and co-conspirators.
He will truly be missed.
I can’t think of any cool stories, right now, I need to process this tragedy.

[ratdude747]

I first came to know Mark back when I started volunteering at CAGE Match 2011. I came to know him better three years later (coincidentally at another CAGE Match, 2014) when he was one of several FTAs who taught me to Scorekeep. Since then, I had the honor to work with him on many more occasions, including at the last Championship held (2019 Tesla Field). In addition to work on the field, like he was to many, he mentored me as a volunteer and role model to others. He will be missed, but his works will have a lasting impact.

Rest in peace, Mark.

[GaryVoshol]

I am sorry to hear this. I didn’t have many interactions with Mark, but all were positive and rewarding.

My condolences to his family, team and company family.

[emmell]

Mark Koors - an inspiration, a mentor (in the truest sense of the word), and a gentle man. May his memory be for a blessing.

Mannie Lowe

[Peyton_Yeung]

Mark was one of my mentors in high school and I greatly value the experiences I got to have with him around. He was always so excited to share his ideas and and out of the box designs that it really got me to broaden my horizons on what was possible.

I think one of my favorite memories was the summer he worked with me to build a picnic table with one of the 2012 bridge toppers. It was a long day working in a hot warehouse but the co-founder of a successful company was still out helping a high school intern.

You’ll be missed Mark.

[Koko_Ed]

I worked with Mark kat several events over the years. He was a pleasure to work with, A true professional. My sympathies to his family and friends. He will truly be missed.

[plnyyanks]

I worked with Mark twice, once a few years back as an FTAA and he was the FTA who trained me at my first event as an FTA myself. I’m grateful I had the opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business and tell him in person how much his work impacted me and my life’s path. He was an absolute professional, an excellent FTA, and a joy to work with and learn from. He will be missed.

[cglrcng]

I was able to watch Mark work attempting to fix problems with our Champ corner field The Hopper Field From **** in The Dome back in St. LOUIS years ago now. He was of many that attempted to fix our issues, and of all that attempted (many shrugged their shoulders), he never gave up.

May the lord bless all those he left behind, and may he rest in peace. TY Andy for your tribute to Mark, and he will be sorely missed.

[bdaroz]

I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to meet and work with Mark both at our local regional and in Detroit. His calm and collected demeanor hid a wealth of knowledge and experience that he was often all too happy to share.

Our hearts go out to his family and friends. All of FIRST benefited from his mentorship, entrepreneurship, and volunteerism, and he will be sorely missed.

[Al_Skierkiewicz]

Mark and I have known each other for a long time. He was always easy to smile and we often talked about things that were not robot related. Mark I are both ham radio operators and we would often talk about broadcasting and the benefits of one type of antenna design over another. As Karthik has mentioned above, FIRST was a much smaller community at one time. At the turn of the century, there were only a few competitions available to teams in this area, the Midwest Regional and two events in Michigan. We often encountered each other at those events. Mark worked as a robot inspector before he moved into FTA duties. During Championship events in Atlanta, I could depend on Mark to handle some very serious issues with professionalism and patience and his memory lives on in the ways that we train robot inspectors now.
When he told me of his illness, I knew that at sometime I was going to have to say goodbye. Our last farewell was at IRI where he was working on the practice field. It was sad not knowing if each goodbye would be our last.
Goodbye old friend, thanks for all I have learned from you. Thanks for the friendly smile, the serious technical discussions and times we have shared. I will cherish them always.

[Rjmartin127]

Mark was a quiet giant who supported students in tremendous ways. He was a collaborator who had fun in all aspects of teaching students about whatever he thought was interesting. Whether it was the hard skills such as using machinery and designing robots or soft skills such as being approachable, being kind, and giving back. When students brought up good ideas that he didn’t think of, he would light up and expand upon them. He knew how to take the students’ ideas and make them realities and to make sure to have fun doing it. This picture I found of him on my phone from 2014 with the early stages of creating one of my personal favorite TechnoKats robots ever shows him in a natural habitat that was common, staring at a robot deep in thought. He would always be involved and always willing to listen to a crazy idea while coming up with some on his own that I along with many others worked on. When I was a student, he taught me so much about designing and what considerations would go into every thought. When I was a mentor and volunteer alongside him, we would be able to collaborate and challenge each other on what strategies would be good in those year’s games while watching matches during the season online or at the scoring table.

People like Mark are the reason so many people joined and stayed in robotics and loved it through blood, sweat, and tears. Mark was a boss, mentor, collaborator, and luckily enough a friend to me.

“Come for the robots, stay for the people.”

[Richard_Wallace]

Somewhere there is a picture of Mark’s extreme torque test rig, consisting of a hub, a 2x4, some rope and a couple of cinder blocks. Quick set-up and it found the failure mode. [Broken gear, or magic smoke?] An engineer’s engineer, as Andy’s testimonial amply attests.

Mark was also the original iron man of FTAs. Way back in 2008 he worked five events in five weeks, traveling far and wide. He set the standard. When I see today’s young generation of energetic field volunteers working heads down while most of us are dancing, I think about the chain of mentorship that brought them there. Mark was one of the FIRST links in that chain. His inspiration will continue to be felt and paid forward for a long time.