Terry Olkin, Teresa Ewing and John Rigsby will will tell the tale about why they founded the GEAR alliance, a 501(c)(3) in 2015 as a spinoff from the St. Vrain Valley School District to be the the umbrella organization for their high school robotics teams (including Up-A-Creek Robotics), why they mentor high school robotics teams in their free time, and why one of them was passionate enough to invest over $1M for a building to house these teams. They will talk about their journey and vision of filling the missing pieces of education, especially in STEM and how they are teaching high school students how to collaborate, lead, innovate, volunteer and work within a budget and stay on schedule. They are helping to create a skilled workforce pipeline and impassioned students around robotics….not to mention these high school robotics teams are “killing it” in competitions!
