Hello to everyone on CD (and hopefully Dean himself),
I am a 11th grade student at Huron High School in Ann Arbor MI. In my English class recently, I was given an assignment entitled “The American Dream”, and we had to get in contact with someone we felt had achieved the American dream, and then present this information. While I was making a possible list of candidates, my mind kept going back to the same name: Dean Kamen. So, i was wondering what the best way to get in contact with Dean Kamen, and possibly send him a email questionnaire or something along those lines. Dean if you are too busy, i completely understand, being one of the world’s greatest minds is hard work!!!
I doubt that he reads these forums. I also doubt that he has any time to respond to personal correspondents. If you want to talk to him you will probably have to find an intermediary who knows you. I would suggest talking to your team leader and asking him/her to call their contact person at FIRST team support, someone who knows the team well. This contact person can probably connect you to someone in a better position, but if you hit a stonewall you can send a letter to media relations at DEKA or Segway. If you don’t get a response to that I’d recommend having your team leader cold-call someone high up at FIRST (possibly Bob Hammond) (don’t do this yourself or until you’ve tried everything else). Another possibility would be to call DEKA and ask to speak to Mr. Kamen’s office. You’ll probably need to work your way through a couple of secretaries here so be very nice and very professional. The person you want is Dean’s secretary, not Dean himself.
Chances are you probably aren’t going to get an interview. If you needed help getting a Segway fixed or starting a team, this process might help you, but I’m willing to guess that Dean Kamen’s time is a very, very precious commodity, you might want to consider asking someone else.
Having said all of this you might want to reconsider your attitude towards Dean when writing your paper and conducting your interview. Having gone through the whole process of getting an hour of the man’s time you $@#$@#$@#$@# well better write a good paper. That means be professional, don’t go in with the attitude that Dean Kamen Is God, he isn’t, he’s something of a great man but he is as human as the rest of us, which means ask interesting and tough questions and challenge him for honest answers.
How do I contact Dean Kamen directly?
Unfortunately you cannot contact Dean directly. His schedule makes it impossible for him to read or respond personally to all the correspondence he receives. If you have a question, please send an email to [email protected] and we will forward your message either to him or the appropriate person here at DEKA. Bear in mind that we can’t make any promises regarding confidentiality of e-mail messages or letters.
I’d say your best bet would be to find him at a regional event or at the Championship, but that doesn’t seem to fit the time constraints of writing your paper.
Why not? If a forum was in place for something that your heart and soul was truly into, something that you created, would you see what the latest word on the street is so to speak?
I think this is a good question to ask Dean, and also Woodie for that matter. “Do you browse ChiefDelphi.com”?
We already know that a few other people who (currently/ have in the past) work for and or volunteer for at the highest levels are registered users on CD.
Dave Lavery, Dr. Aidan Browne, and others.
I mean hey, Brandon or Mike Martus (I forget which one - maybe both) even said at the Web-hug in previous years that many hits on CD do come from FIRST HQ web-servers.
Not sure exactly how they found that out, but still… It adds to my idea that many employees/volunteers at the FIRST HQ look at CD.
Why not Dean?
*And Dean, if you normally don’t look at ChiefDelphi.com, and by chance, someone shows you this post, I didn’t mean it to be a guilt trip that you don’t look at ChiefDelphi.com often, or ever… You just keep making some cool stuff to help people, and keep promoting FIRST, and leave the regular ChiefDelphi.com searching and browsing for new FIRST community news to someone else to relay important discussions to you.
Edit: Now that we know who you chose for the inventor, what invention are you going to focus the report on by the way??
Segway? IBOT? The first wearable infusion pump? The heart stent?
Well, the assignment that i was given wants me to just kind of talk about the American Dream, and i just thought that this would be amazing way to share the FIRST experience to my classmates and teacher. I think that Dean Kamen has achieved the American Dream, in all its entirety
The greatest invention? Well for me, right now, it has to be the Cardiovascular stent. My grandmother is in the hospital right now recovering from getting a new stent that was designed by Dean Kamen. I can not thank Dean enough. He basically saved my grandmas life today…in a non-direct kind of way. Thanks Dean for all your great life saving inventions!
My roommate went and interviewed him last year for a paper he was writing on the history of FIRST, so this isn’t unheard of, but I think it took him a few weeks to get it setup. He even ended up with an internship at DEKA over the summer after getting contacts when he went to do the interview.
