quote: A decade ago Dean founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), and ever since has remained its driving force, its guiding spirit, and, in the eyes of thousands of students across the country, its personal embodiment. FIRST uses wholesale marketing and media techniques to motivate the next generation to want to learn about science and technology. Dean has personally recruited scores of the top leaders of American industry, education and government in this crusade. As a result, the national championship of the FIRST Robotics Competition, which teams professional engineers with high school students from across the country, has set a new record each of the last four years as the largest non-Disney event ever held at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. The 2000 event attracted almost 400 teams and has impacted tens of thousands of students — many of them women or minorities from large urban schools.
[ October 15, 2004, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]