Welcome Bryan Herbst as new Co-Chief Field Supervisor

FIRST^® Robotics Competition has several volunteers who are identified as Co-Chiefs such as Robot Inspector, FTAs, Volunteer Coordinator, and many other roles. Today, we’re here to talk about one specific group of Chiefs – our Chief Field Supervisors. The Chief Field Supervisors are responsible for the training and support of Field Supervisors, FTAAs, and Lead Queuers and work closely with staff to help support the volunteers and develop best practices.

Scott Goering, the 2024 FIRST Robotics Competition Volunteer of the Year, has been one of our Co-Chiefs since 2019. After the 2024 season, he decided to take a step back to spend more time with his family and to open up the Co-Chief role for someone else.

FIRST^®, along with the other Co-Chief Ayla DeLaat, has been working over the past month to identify a replacement. We solicited nominations from our other Chiefs, staff, PDPs, and FTAs. When someone is asked to be a Co-Chief, it means FIRST thinks that person is an outstanding role model for others in their area of specialization and demonstrates exceptional commitment to our Core Values. While the name of this role is called “Chief Field Supervisor”, they do help train and support three of our Key Volunteers and we wanted to find someone who was knowledgeable about all three areas. We are excited to announce that Bryan Herbst will be the new Co-Chief Field Supervisor!

Bryan joined FIRST in 2007 as a student on FIRST Robotics Competition Team 2052, KnightKrawler. In 2010 Bryan was a Dean's List Award Finalist at the 10,000 Lakes Regional. After graduating he continued to support the team as a mentor while he studied computer science at the University of Minnesota. Bryan still mentors 2052 and in 2024 he was the Woodie Flowers Finalist at the 10,000 Lakes Regional.

In Minnesota Bryan has been a member of the Regional Planning Committee for the 10,000 Lakes Regional, is a director on the FIRST in Upper Midwest board, and has led both the Minnesota State High School League and the off-season events committees for five years.

In addition to the above, Bryan has served as an event volunteer since 2011. He first served as a Field Supervisor in 2013, an FTAA in 2014, and an FTA in 2015. He has also served as an Official Scorer, Robot Inspector, Practice Field Attendant, Field Resetter, Judge, and Judge Advisor. In his free time Bryan is a Principal Software Engineer at Target where he works on Target's Android application.

We’d like to welcome and congratulate Bryan on his new role and give a huge thank you to Scott for all of his work over the years helping to ensure that teams had a more consistent, positive experience across all events.