Coaches/Lead Mentors
Christian Kaneen
Mr. Christian Kaneen is a math and engineering teacher at Evergreen High School. He is the head coach for the Green Wrenches and has been involved with FIRST for five years, the first year acting as a mentor. His favorite thing about FIRST are the opportunities it gives students to work with real life problems and to have the option of being able to apply math and science in a fun and educational way.
Life Motto: “To work hard, and enjoy your accomplishments”
David Dean
Has been Team Coach for Evergreen Robotics since it began in 2007. Originally, he was the faculty adviser when the Green Grinches were looking to bring the team to Evergreen Public Schools. They were able to hook David in and laid the foundation for what the Wrenches are today. Even though David is no longer employed by Evergreen Public Schools, he continues to mentor the team still as team co-coach and lead mentor. He also serves as the Booster president for the team. David plays a jack of all trades role when it comes to mentoring. More specifically, he oversees the team in project and team management, information technology, web design, video production, and graphic design. He commutes from Portland, OR where he serves as IT Manager for Lewis & Clark College. He holds a bachelor of science degree in Information Technology and several industry IT certifications.
Life Motto: “Impact many lives in positive manner”
Teri Stuart Wegmann
Teri started her FIRST career in 2001 as the coach of her Girl Scout Troop’s FIRST Lego League (FLL) team. After three years of FLL, her troop had aged out and wanted another challenge, so they decided to start a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team. The Green Grinches Team 1624 was the first Girl Scout Troop in the world to be a FRC team.
In 2007, the girls graduated from high school and were unable to find another troop to take over where they left off. However, they could not let FRC participation end in SW Washington, so they worked hard to start The Green Wrenches in the Evergreen School District to carry on the FRC tradition.
In doing so, their efforts earned them The Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouting.
Although Teri retired from Girl Scouts in 2007 (after 25 years of being a Girl Scout Troop leader for her two daughters), she wanted to make sure the program would continue to thrive in the Evergreen School District. Therefore, she volunteered to remain as a mentor and consultant for the new team. In addition to working directly with the FRC team, Teri also initiated the Evergreen Robotics Booster Club to handle the fund raising and finances for the FRC teams. She was also able to get the Booster Club approved as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Teri says she keeps coming back every year because of how the program transforms the students. By the end of their first season, students who would never speak in public have a new sense of confidence and they are so excited about what they are doing that they can talk to anyone with ease.
Even though she is a Commercial Loan Processor in the Commercial Banking department at Riverview Community Bank, Teri believes engineering is in her blood. Her father has been an engineering salesman throughout his 50+ year career at places like Cessna and BorgWarner. Additionally, her brother was a mechanical engineer and her youngest daughter is at WSU (class of 2012) studying to be a mechanical engineer.
When Teri was growing up, not many girls did this kind of work and society had much stricter guidelines as to what was considered an acceptable career path for women. This is why Teri feels so strongly about getting girl students involved in the robotics program.
Her motto is “Whoever said ‘May the best man win’ never asked a GIRL to play!”
Mentors
Matt Driggers
Matt is a mechanical mentor for the team. In his day job, Matt is a mechanical engineer who designs and tests ink jet printer systems and parts for Hewlett Packard. Educating via actually building and doing things with science, math, and engineering is a strong value he holds. To help supplement students’ classroom experiences, Matt has been a long time volunteer with Washington Science Olympiad and nConnect (high school mentoring program) in addition to having volunteered time with FIRST Lego League (FLL) and FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) tournaments. Matt has lead workshops on safety, prototyping, and tool use for FRC. Matt has been involved with Team 2517 since its founding.
Keith W. Wegmann
Has been involved in the FIRST program as a mentor of the First Lego League (FLL) team Green Grinches from 2001-2004. When the Green Grinches aged out of FLL he stayed with the team and assisted them in making the transition to compete in FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The Green Grinches (Team 1624) competed in FRC from 2005 to 2007. The Green Grinches retired (aged out) from competition at the end of the 2007, but not before establishing a new team at Evergreen High School the Green Wrenches. He has continued to volunteer his time as a mentor for the Green Wrenches Team 2517 since its inception in 2008 and look forward to continuing as a mentor for the foreseeable future.
John Harvey
Mr. John Harvey is an 11th and 12th grade English teacher at Evergreen High School. He has been part of the Green Wrenches for four years. John does the proofreading of all the documentations and helps the seniors with scholarships and how to approach them. He is a national board certified teacher in language arts. This is an intense year long process, but it is a high honor in the teaching world, it is almost a doctorate for teachers. It means that he has the title as a good teacher. He is going for another certification in social studies.
Margaret Milem
Is a math teacher at Covington Middle School and the secretary of the Evergreen Robotics Booster Club. She has been part of FIRST for 2 1/2 years and helps the team with administrative work. Her favorite part of FIRST is how the students develop friendships and seeing them become more confident in presentations. A motto she likes to live by is “You can learn best if you really listen to the people who disagree with you”.
Jean Oh
Works at Boeing as manufacturing engineer and this is her first year as a mentor of the Evergreen Robotics team. She is the project management mentor and her expectations is to learn how to work with crazy ideas and make them a reality all the while working as a team. She’s really excited to see the product of all the hard work. And… GO HUSKIES!!!! (:
Bob Silva
Ron Brown
Ron Brown is a retired worker from the US West telephone company. It’s his first year being a mentor for the Evergreen Robotics team and he is an all-around mentor and helps wherever he can. He hopes to see the students do well and learn something that they can use later on in life. He likes to be with his family, build his own robots, work with his lathe, take things apart, and he likes to target shoot. His favorite music is from the 40s and 50s. Some interesting facts about Ron is that he use to be in the Navy (Aviation Electrician 1st class petty officer), he worked on F9, F5, F6, and F8s which they called panthers and cougars. His favorite motto is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
Thomas Gibb
Thomas Gibb joined the Green Wrenches mentors because of his grandchildren, Tyler and Olea, asked him to. He also wanted to contribute his skills that he knows the Robotics team needs and wanted to help out. Also, his employers, Intel, wanted volunteers to help out; every hour volunteers put in, Intel will donate $10. He works as a software developer at Intel. He was also a Navy veteran, he served for 20 years before retiring 29 years ago. During his free time, he likes to research and program computers; he also teaches amateur radio at a local college, and he’s the vice president of OARS, Olympia Amateur Radio Society. His favorite thing about FIRST is the stimulation is provides students, the encouragement for math and science, and how it broadens the students capabilities and skills. He is program mentor in the team. One thing he learned for the Navy was to always keep busy and to do something productive with your life. He has 11 kids and 34 grand kids.
Life Motto: “Never get through a day without learning something new”
Hector Yong
Hector Yong didn’t intend to join as a mentor; he wanted to mainly work as a parent volunteer. But after time and work intensive days and hours dedicated to the team, he became a Green Wrenches mentor. He works as a general mentor; he helps makes the students think about what they are doing and how to do it better. He also helps out by pointing various problems that can and will occur of the current robot and makes the team thinks about why it will go wrong and how to fix it. He works as a mechanic at Burback Motors. On his free time, he likes to do wood work and other wood crafts. His favorite part about FIRST is the new challenges FIRST presents to the students every year. He likes how the challenge always changes every year. Hector has two kids part of FIRST, Pablo, a freshman, currently doing the FTC challenge, and Stephanie, junior, doing both FRC and FTC competitions.
Life Motto: “Measure twice, cut once”
Tim Lutz
Tim is employed with Clark Public Utilities as a utility mechanic and this is his first year as a mentor. His son Austin is on the team and encouraged Tim to join as a mentor to share his 20+ years of hands-on experience. Tim enjoys sharing his knowledge with anyone who wants to learn and wishes to help the team not only build a great robot, but also learn valuable life skills in the process.
Don Prier
Don is one of the newest mentors of the Green Wrenches. Don has been both a practicing engineer and a teacher in the states of Louisiana, California and Washington – and has been involved in robotics since 1992. Don now has his own engineering design company, Gryphon Engineering and Technology, where he is responsible for electro mechanical solutions for several local companies and international companies. He has been involved with FIRST since the year 1999. Don has been both a coach and mentor for several FRC, and FTC teams which include 255, 2222, and 2660 and 3637. Don Prier was also mentored by Eric Stokely (head coach of Bellarmine Prep. team 360) back in 2007 for FRC team Lincoln High school, team 2222.
Don is excited to be part of the team because this is the first time he has had the opportunity to coach his daughter Laura on a FRC team.
Monikka Mann
Monikka is a new mentor of the Green Wrenches. Monikka, with degrees in Mechanical Engineering (MS) and Materials Science & Engineering (BS) is the mother of Laura Prier. Monikka was first introduced to robotics by her husband Don Prier who had been involved with robotics since the early 1990s. Monikka is currently a project engineer for LifePort Inc, a United Technologies/Sikorsky Aerospace Services subsidiary located in Woodland, WA and is also a the majority owner of Gryphon Engineering and Technology. She has been involved with FIRST since 1999. She has been both a coach and mentor for several FRC and FTC teams including 2222, and 2660 and 3637. In addition, Monikka has been an invited speaker at the Society of Women Engineers Regional conference.
Monikka is excited to be part of Team 2517 because she finally has the chance to coach her daughter on a FIRST team.
