Coach’s Corner
Dec
19
Written by:
Monday, December 19, 2011 3:21 PM
Hello Ten80 Student Racing Challenge Teams! I am thrilled to be bringing you Coach’s Corner, the newest addition to the Ten80 SRC Nascar STEM Initiative blog series, where you can read about my comments and tips to running a successful SRC project team.
I have been involved with project teams for almost 15 years as a founder, coach, and manager of several project teams across education, business, and manufacturing. By day, I am the coach of the Hopewell HS Tech Devils SRC race team and Engineering Technology Instructor at Hopewell HS in Hopewell, VA. By night, I run BreakThru Achievement Solutions LLC, a company I founded to provide products and services designed to help students reach their full potential.
As a teacher and coach I have founded and coached multiple high school teams to top three finishes in top-tier project-based programs including Ten80 SRC, FIRST robotics, andLemelson-MIT InvenTeams. I have also served as a project team member on several school improvement project teams. As a manufacturing supervisor and project manager I have managed or contributed as a team member on several million dollar cost-savings engineering project teams in the DRAM/computer chip industry. As a business owner I work on projects that involve co-operation of many people to create and deliver products and services to clients.
Through all of this I have seen first-hand what it takes for a project team to be successful. Perhaps more importantly, I have seen what it takes for a project team to fail. Through this blog I look forward to sharing comments and tips to boost your team’s performance and help you avoid some of the common mistakes many teams make before they even start so you can get across the finish line with arms raised high (instead of with hair pulled out)!
Next week: Spelling “project” with a capital “P”