Chris Mros, Adam Geier and Maressa Ranaletti are technology teachers in the Greece Central School District. They all graduated from SUNY Oswego with Bachelor of Science in Technology education degrees, and are involved with the Robotics program in the Greece Central School District.
The Greece Robotics program started in 2005 under the leadership of Chris Mros, Greece Athena technology teacher and Adam Geier, technology teacher for the Greece School District. The program, at that time, consisted of three Greece High Schools: Athena, Arcadia and Olympia. Maressa Ranaletti was a senior at Greece Arcadia and was encouraged by her technology teacher, Mr. Mros to become a member of the first robotics team. She preferred building and taking things apart rather than the academic part of school, and found her niche in the technology and robotics programs.
After she graduated from Arcadia in 2006, Ranaletti wasn’t involved with any robotics programs during her college years, but did attend a few competitions over those years. After graduating from college, she held a long term substitute teaching position in the Spencerport School District and worked with Joe Gallina in the Technology Department. Gallina is one of the head coaches for the Spencerport Robotics Team, he encouraged her to get involved in the robotics program. Ranaletti was very impressed with the Spencerport program, how well it was run, and how much suppport they received from the district, teachers, students, parents and people outside the school. Ranaletti realized the commitment involved with the program at Spencerport but wasn’t ready to jump in yet.
After she was hired by the Greece School District as a technology teacher she was asked by her past coach and teacher Chris Mros to join the Greece Robotics Team as an assistant coach and take over as a head coach the following year with Adam Geier, so that Mros could spend more time with his growing family.
Ranaletti was ready at this point. She was back at her home school feeling a commitment to her district and her students, and wanting to give her students another outlet to be a part of, building on engineering and the trades as job opportunities available to all students. She was able to bring the Greece Odyssey students into the program in 2017-2018 and now it encompasses the entire Greece School District.
There are also two First Lego Leagues providing middle school age students the opportunity to be a part of the Robotics Program. Claudine Dixon, librarian at Arcadia and Don Scanzeroli, Odyssey Technology teacher run the middle school programs. The more students that become involved at a younger age will help to develop an even stronger level of competitors when they reach the high school level.
Ranaletti would like to close the gap between the other districts and Greece. She said, “Chris and Adam have built a great base for the program. I would like to get more students involved and build a quality team. I would also like to see the students do more outreach programs and have more involvement in the community they live in.”
Photos by Karen Fien
