Fort Myers is CommTech Jeopardy National Champion!

 (Story taken from www.TeamComcast.com)


Fort Myers is bringing the Dan Aaron trophy home to the Comcast Southern Division after winning National CommTech Jeopardy Thursday night in Charleston, South Carolina.

The team, known as the Ed Parsons Project, is part of the Comcast Coastal Region and won the Southern Division Championship last November. Team members are Nils Laufer, James Grantham, DJ Simms, Tom Weisend, Andy Schickowski and Coaches Ken Sapp and Chuck Blaisdell. The team faced off this week in a battle of wits, technology and company trivia against the North Central Division’s Sterling FREQs (pronounced “freaks”); East Division’s Cherry Hill LanMINDS; and West Division’s Mountain Madness. The West was eliminated early Thursday leaving the final game to the South, East and North Central. Fort Myers enjoyed a significant lead for most of the game, and then showed confidence with the Final Jeopardy question which asked them to identify the eight components of a house amplifier.

Barb Hagen, vice president and general manager for the Comcast Sarasota/Fort Myers market, was thrilled. “What an awesome day. I am very proud of our team,” Hagen said. “They worked hard, studied endlessly and deserve this national championship. The Fort Myers system had numerous accomplishments in 2009, and this championship is the final chapter of a great story.”

“What strikes me again is not just how knowledgeable these guys are, but how fortunate we are to have ‘ambassadors’ such as all of these technicians representing our company to our customers,” said Scott Calloway, vice president of operations for the Comcast Southern Division. “Collectively, they are so dedicated and committed to their teams, their company and their customers. It should make us all proud to be Comcasters.”

With the trophy now safely in their grasp, Hagen shared some of the team’s strategy: “Divide the categories between team members so they all share in the preparation,” she explained. “They studied from a stack of note cards that was 36-inches high. The team involvement was noticed by our competition and Fort Myers was the most well rounded team in the competition.”

Hagen points out that this is the second time Fort Myers has competed in a national CommTech Jeopardy championship. In 2001, they placed second.