Corporate Officers and Directors

Dr. Eugene D. Brooks III

Dr. Eugene Brooks, President of the WRRF, works at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a computational physicist. Eugene's research interests are in parallel computer architecture, parallel computing for scientific applications and development of numerical methods for computational physics. He has been a FIRST mentor for more than 6 years to two FIRST teams. Eugene holds a Phd in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology. He also holds a BS in Physics from the University of Maryland and a MS in Physics from Caltech.

Michael Schmit

Mike Schmit, Vice-President of the WRRF, is a software engineering manager at Advanced Micro Devices in Santa Clara. Mike first became involved with WRRF through his daughter's participation in a FIRST team in their rookie year, some four years ago. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the US Naval Academy and served on nuclear submarines. After qualifying as a submarine Engineering Officer he left the Navy and worked at Lockheed as the chief software architect for an Experiment Control Computer on the Space Shuttle and other "devices" launched into Space. He's written books on software optimization, started his own software company, taught computer architecture, programming and software engineering project management classes and served on the Board of Directors and as President of the Software Entrepreneur's Forum. His code optimization expertise led to the first software DVD player application and he currently works on parallelizing video encoders and transcoders as well as other audio and video related applications.

Cecillia D. Craig

Ceal Craig, Secretary & Treasurer for WRRF, first delved into robotics in 2002 when a sixth-grade student in a Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth summer program asked her to add "robotics" to the Science and Engineering class she was teaching. Since then she has been feeding a consuming passion to help young people learn about engineering careers through robotics and STEM programs. Besides teaching workshops for WRRF, both she and her husband have been the lead mentors for Team #1120.
Back in the slide-rule days, Ceal earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University (~600 women graduated with degrees in Engineering in the US that year). She went on to earn an M.S. in Engineering from Cal State Fullerton with further postgraduate work in Engineering Management at SMU in Dallas. As a Director or Program Manager, Ceal has more than 30 years of experience in high tech management covering a wide range of industries including aerospace, office equipment, computers, and disk drives.
Ceal also spent time as an educator, teaching high school math, then physics and engineering for Johns Hopkins programs and is a faculty practitioner for the University of Phoenix Online. Besides working in high-tech as a Director for New Products at Blade Network Technologies, based in Santa Clara, Ceal is an officer in two other not-for-profit organizations Board of Directors (Santa Clara Valley Performing Arts Association and the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society).

Ken Krieger

Ken Krieger, WRRF Founder and Board Member, has been a mentor for several FIRST Robotics teams in previous years. Mr. Krieger is an electrical engineer and has worked for employers and clients including Newmagic Entertainment, Tiara Networks, Cisco, Bay Networks, and now works for Google. Ken holds a BS and a MS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University, St. Louis.

Alvin Cheng

Alvin Cheng, WRRF Board Member, is a FIRST Alumni and current professional mentor for several FIRST teams. Alvin is a mechanical engineer and currently works in the defense industry at BAE SYSTEMS. He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara.

Prof. Chris Kitts

Prof. Kitts, WRRF Board Member, is an Associate Professor at Santa Clara University where he serves as the Director of the Robotic Systems Laboratory. He is also the Director of the Center for Robotic Exploration and Space Technologies, a multi-institution consortium or academic institutions focusing on aerospace research and education and which is located at the NASA Ames Research Park. Prof. Kitts holds a B.S.E in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, a M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University, a M.P.A. in International and Defense Policy from University of Colorado, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.