Your code made alot of sense to make rList a smaller size. Good news is i got the code to work but when i do a batch test method of 200 than it fails again on too many script statements. The highest i can get it to is 95 in a batch insert.  i need to look at this more but any ideas how i can make rLIst smaller??. Notice now I add the contact record type to the set and pass it in the method as a parameter....my rList has to be smaller now but why am i still hitting script limits?? thinking......the trigger should only execute if the account associated with the contact.accountid has an account.status = Active...maybe i could work something with that?

trigger ContactAutomationTrigger on Contact (before insert, before update) 

{

        Set<Id> aSet = new Set<Id>();

        List<Contact> cNewList= Trigger.new;

        Set<Id> cRTSet = new Set<Id>();

        for(Contact c: cNewList)

        {

        aSet.add(c.AccountId);  

         cRTset.add(c.RecordTypeId);

        }

        ContactUtilities.RegionAssign(cNewList, aSet, cRTSet); 

}

 public static void Region Assign(List<Contact> cList, Set<Id> aSet, Set<Id> cRTSetId)

    {         

            Map<Id, RecordType> rtMap = new Map<Id, RecordType>();      

            List<String> aList =new List<String>();       

            Map<Id, Account> aMap = new Map<Id, Account>([SELECT Id, channel__c, status__c FROM Account WHERE id =: aSet]);

Set<String> cRTSetName = new Set<String>();

for(RecordType rt : [Select Name From RecordType Where ID IN :cRTSetId])

{

cRTSetName.add(rt.name);

}

            rtMap = New Map<ID,RecordType>([Select ID From RecordType Where sObjectType = 'Region__c' and Name IN :cRTSetName]);

            List<Region__c> tList = [select id, zip_start__c, zip_end__c, state__c,Sales_Rep__c, channel__c, recordTypeId from Region__c where Sales_Rep__c != null

                                       AND RecordTypeID IN :rtMap.keySet()];      

            for(Contact c:cList) 

            {

             try 

              {

            for(integer i= 0; i< rList.size(); i++)

                {

  String mailingPostalCode= String.valueOf(c.mailingPostalCode);

                    if(c.mailingstate== rList.get(i).state__c  && aMap.get(c.accountId).channel__c == rList.get(i).channel__c && aMap.get(c.accountId).status__c=='Active' )

                    {    

                        if(c.mailingPostalCode >= tList.get(i).zip_start__c && c.mailingPostalCode<=rList.get(i).zip_end__c  || rList.get(i).zip_start__c ==null  && rList.get(i).zip_end__c ==null)

                        {

                            c.Region__c = rList.get(i).id;

                            c.OwnerId = rList.get(i).Sales_Rep__c;

                        }

                    }