The Mentors

Faculty Mentor, Jason Wolfsen
  is an Autism Spectrum Disorder Teacher at Grosse Pointe North High School, working with students ages 16-26 years of age. He is a family oriented professional who is passionate about helping others and working with kids. If he could have a super power he would like to be able know what people are thinking to better assist them. He joined the Gearheads in 2016 with the aim to help the team reach their full potential as a unit and individuals.


Controls Mentor, Mike Rogers
    is a newly retired employee from the GM research and development labs as a research technician. He works in electronics and instrumentation. This year, he hopes to help our controls group with the code and the hardwiring on the robot. He is also a '75 graduate of Grosse Pointe North.


Controls Mentor, Jack Howes
  is a retiree from General Motors. He works with fabrication, design, controls and build. He is always ready with a helping hand in the shop, from constructing practice field elements, to assisting with engineering robot structures.


​Fabrication Mentor, Dr. Jeff Santrock PhD
   is a chemist employed by General Motors. He joined the team as a mentor in 2011, the same year his son joined. Mr. Santrock has been one of our most involved mentors, present at every competition always helping the team to build better 'bots.

Media Mentor, Eric Kam
   is an engineer working as Product Marketing and Community Manager for ESI, a computer simulation and engineering software company. He works with a variety of industries applying virtual reality simulation software for engineering and design validation. He is the Social Media and content marketing lead.  He travels lots.

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Business Mentor, Rose Abraham
  is an IT project manager for Global during the day.  Her goal is to build a Gearheads 'Wikipedia', additionally she hopes to increase sponsorship of the team, and for them to be a household name in Grosse Pointe.  
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Parent Mentor, Dr. Eileen Reickert MD
   In her day job she is a physician, by night and weekends she is a mentor extraordinaire. She is motivated to keep all the team members involved. She's been actively involved with FIRST since 2012. Previously she was the coach of the FTC team #7045 the Blown Fuses. She lives by the mantra and can be heard muttering, "We learn more from our mistakes.”  

Parent Mentor, Michaela McArthur
 is the newest mentor for the WOW section of The Gearheads, which focuses on inspiring women, and helping them get more involved in The Gearheads. Along with this, she also helps come up with game strategies, overall benefiting our team. She’s also striving to try and get the different subteams throughout Team 1189 to communicate more efficiently.  She has been teaching first grade at a charter school in Warren, MI for the past 10 years. 


Parent Mentor, Dr. Craig Reickert MD
   is a surgeon who gives his valuable time off to assisting the team in the shop. He helps with build and fabrication. His and Eileens sons have all been Gearheads as well as "Blown Fuses" the FTC team from Parcells Middle School.

Parent Mentor, Gregg Huskin
  Works in consulting and claims management for the healthcare and pharmaceuticals industry. He has been instrumental in building our practice field elements and working with the build team in constructing the robot. 

Parent Mentor, Matthew Rigotti
​is a project manager at Hella Electronics.  He leads development teams that design and launch new products.  What he would like to impart the Gearheads is an appreciation  that everything they do can either add or detract value from the team.