Jill Zande never has a problem finding officials for the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center's competitions for remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
For MATE's 12th Annual International ROV Competition on June 20 to 22 in Seattle, she has lots of volunteers from the Marine Technology Society (MTS) and dozens of corporate sponsors. Zande is the MATE Center's co-principal investigator, associate director, and competition coordinator.
"Our member response has been nothing short of outstanding. In fact the only complaint I have ever heard is when some of our members, or member companies, have been jealous because they thought their rivals or competitors were more visible than they at competitions," said MTS President Drew Michel.
Marine technology professionals have many opportunities to interact with students during a Career Expo, poster session, and engineering evaluations of students' ROVs. Employers also get the chance to see how 500 secondary school and college students perform under stress, as their robots perform tasks that mimic undersea workplace challenges.