New Jersey Road Show

Last week eCYBERMISSION hit the road to recruit Volunteers and Virtual Judges for the second-to-last time this competition year, this time driving to New Jersey to conduct outreach road shows at two Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) subordinates.

Micah and Olivia left on Monday, Jan. 11 and spent the night at a hotel in Parsippany that looked like a medieval castle from the outside. Unfortunately, we arrived late that night and left early the next morning, so all of the pictures were taken in the dark.

The first RDECOM subordinate road show was on Tuesday at the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal.

As always, our point of contact there, Jaxon Teck, was a very accommodating host and not only helped set us up, but also brought new potential Volunteers and Virtual Judges to the registration tables.

Fortunately, this year we were joined by two additional ARDEC employees – Vincent Marchese, a retired ARDEC employee who was an Ambassador the past few years and is now a Virtual Judge, and Wayne Wolverton, a very active CyberGuide who led the first pilot eCYBERMISSION webinar. Both Vincent and Wayne also helped to bring people over to our registration tables and without all three of them the road show would not have been successful as it was. We registered a total of 14 new Volunteers and Virtual Judges that day!

After leaving ARDEC and driving to a new hotel in Eatontown, we spent Wednesday at the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) at Fort Monmouth.

Our Volunteers at CERDEC have always been very gracious hosts in the past and our 2010 visit was no different. When we arrived, we were greeted by posters, balloons and purple and gold Hershey Kisses! Yolanda Henry, Erica Bertoli, Wilma Saunders and Ron Seldon assisted us on the main base and at the Myer Center - we registered 47 new Volunteers and Virtual Judges that day! This more than doubles the previous highest road show registration total of 24 set at Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) during the two days there in December 2009. Are any of our future road show locations, either this year or next, ready to accept the challenge of beating that number?!

With New Jersey in the books, there are a few more road shows left but only one more that will take us out of state. Next up – our final RDECOM subordinate, the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) in Michigan next week!

If you are interested in assisting the eCYBERMISSION team at a future road show, please visit our Google Map for a list of upcoming events or contact the Volunteer Program at volunteerprogram@ecybermission.com. For more photos from this trip and others, visit the eCYBERMISSION Flickr page.