Regional Coordinator
Wesley Thompson | 
thompson.wes@gmail.com
Wes started volunteering with MATE in 2006 while attending the University of Washington for Oceanography. While his career has moved to space rather than oceans, he very much enjoys keeping his feet wet with the MATE ROV competition. Wes works as an instrumentation design engineer for Blue Origin, is a Scout leader, a soccer coach, and generally enjoys encouraging young people to find the best in themselves.
Other Staff
Matt Gardner | matt.gardner@mtsociety.org
Matt’s ROV career actually got started as a participant in the MATE ROV competition. He built his first underwater robot in 2001, as part of the Introduction to Submersibles class at Monterey Peninsula College. In 2003 and 2004, he was captain of his college’s teams that participated in the MATE international ROV contest, winning the Sharkpedo award for design innovation both years. After two fun and successful years as team captain, Matt asked the MATE ROV Competition if he could help. Soon thereafter he found himself the Competition Technical Manager, helping to design and build the product demonstration tasks. And in 2017, Matt became the regional coordinator for the Northern California - Monterey Bay regional.
