Meet Michele Mendez
FCDI is delighted to welcome Michele Mendez to our Board of Directors. Michele is a Vice President with Bank of America, specializing in Small Business Lending. She is also Special Events Executive Producer for PLuGHiTz Live, where, she says, ” I get to do what I love, playing with computers and gadgets and I’m so lucky to get to attend awesome tech conferences like CES.”
“I love collaborating on projects as well as learning new things, and travel,” says Michele, rounding out with FCDIs all-time favorite: Learning New Things!
Michele, like all our board members, is part of the local FIRST family, with her daughter, Daniele, now a student at Florida Polytechnic, having been a member of FIRST Tech Challenge Team Duct Tape for several years.
FCDI’s New Executive Director
Michele replaces Terri Willingham on the volunteer Board of Directors, who was recently voted in as FCDI’s new Executive Director, to provide more formal and dedicated stewardship of programs and the development of FCDIs Advanced Manufacturing & Robotics Center.
“It’s an honor to serve back to FCDI in this new capacity,” says Terri. “As we work towards creating a permanent facility in Tampa Bay, from which we can provide K-20+ STEM programming and workforce development training and support, it’s important that we strengthen our community partnerships and create more professional platforms through which we can better serve our community. I look forward to working with FCDI’s amazing Board of Directors and our great community partners in my new role with FCDI, to build enduring and useful resources in Tampa Bay.”
Going forward, Terri will maintain operations of FCDI, oversee production of our events, nurture and grow our collaborative relationships and help ensure the acquisition of sufficient funding for our programs. A professional writer by trade, Terri is the author of two books on health, co-author of the book, Makerspaces in Libraries (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), and author of Library Makerspaces: The Complete Guide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) , for which board members Steve Willingham and Chuck Stephens were also contributors. Her work has always focused on helping empower individuals to live and learn in meaningful, personally fulfilling and socially productive ways. She was Regional Director for FIRST in Central Florida from 2011-2017, and received a Lightning Community Hero Award in 2017.
Our 2018-19 Board of Directors
In addition to Michele, continuing in their service to the Foundation for Community Driven Innovation, are these dedicated members of the Board of Directors:
Steve Willingham, a Systems Engineer by trade, has been a key team leader on a wide variety of government projects for satellite communications, civil aviation, manned space flight, and commercial venues including insurance, financial services, medical technology, and accounting. Steve is the concept and design architect behind Tampa Bay’s precedent setting 10,000 sq. ft. public makerspace at the John F. Germany Library, and has served as Judge Advisor for FIRST Tech Challenge youth robotics programs in Florida. Steve is the co-owner of Eureka Factory.
JoAnn Fitzpatrick is Creative Director at RealValidation, and owner of Studio 7 Communications. She is a graphic design and web developer, as well as a photographer and entrepreneur, with over 20 years experience in web and print design. She coached FIRST Tech Challenge Team Duct Tape for six years and continues as a team mentor today.
Chuck Stephens currently works as a library technical assistant for Pasco County Libraries in central Florida. He has a wide skill set and believes in learning by doing and teaching by being.
Kirk Malone is currently a Real Estate Agent , and was previously Account Executive and former President of TAB Products Co, LLC, a document management company. Enthusiastic and a highly motivated team player, most recently Kirk had the opportunity to own his own business selling products and services to commercial and government accounts which he ultimately sold in 2013 and remained on as a consultant. He is an active community volunteer and FIRST mentor.
Next Steps
At the invitation of the ARM Institute, FCDI will be heading to Greenville, South Carolina this month, to learn some best practices at Greenville Technical College’s Center for Manufacturing Innovation, and will be meeting with the ARM Institute back here in Tampa, in June, to explore resources and opportunities to assist in the build out of AMRoC.
Our new FIRST Robotics Competition field, under construction at EMS in Odessa, should be completed soon, just in time for planning for ROBOTICON, scheduled for September 29 & 30 at the University of South Florida Sun Dome Arena.
So stay tuned, and please consider getting involved! We welcome volunteers and sponsors for ROBOTICON , mentors and program partners for FIRST programs and interested in being part of AMRoC and of course, donations to help with all these great programs are always valued, with 85% of contributions supporting our community programs. For more information on any of our projects and programs, please get in touch via our contact page.