Brian Grau is both the CEO and the youngest employee of the company he co-founded, Mission Robotics. Before all that, though, he was the “CEO” of his high school’s robotics team that led them to world championship victory.

Brian comes from a long line of engineers. His mother, sister, and grandfather are all in the field, along with various aunts and uncles—so he knew from a pretty young age that he would follow in their footsteps. His sister even competed on a robotics team herself, and Brian couldn’t wait to hit high school and join up. He quickly found his niche in the mechanical side of things, designing and building for his team.

In 2011, his team from Jesuit High School traveled to Houston for the international competition. With NASA looming large in the background, the judges asked the team what they planned to do. The team planned to complete all their mission tasks with time to spare—and then they did, propelling them to victory in the explorer division over college teams.

It was all thanks to practice, Brian says, and getting in the water early.

“The more you’re able to practice and prepare, whether it’s MATE or real life, the smoother your mission—whatever it is—will go,” Brian said.

Preparedness enables confidence, and it was the confidence Brian gained through all his experiences with MATE that helped him found his own company two years ago when he was just 26 years old. Mission Robotics is a software and electronics provider for marine robotics systems that hopes to spur innovation in the industry.

“Doing well in MATE and winning the explorer division as a high school against colleges gave me that confidence to know that even though you’re young, age doesn’t matter,” Brian said. “Work ethic and how much effort you put into something dictate the outcome, not how old you are.”