PERSPECTIVES
BY ED SCHELL
Looking Back on Maintenance Mania as it celebrates its 25 Year Anniversary
Now celebrating it ' s 25th year, AAMD ' s Maintenance celebration event( called " Maintenance Olympics " for the first 15 years), has grown from 60 attendees to over 1,500. This year ' s anniversary event will take place on April 9, and it is interesting to reflect on the origins and development of what we know now as Maintenance Mania.
The event has been fortunate to be surrounded with a ton of great people. The first ever event was pulled together by a small core of people in 2000. Jeff Harmon, Amie Harmon, Dene Trujillo and I were some of the very early committee members, and as we developed a core of an idea for the games and competitions, and Mark Williams worked to ensure the event offered strong educational content. This was a priority from the beginning, and differentiated our program compared to other markets.
Though the first 10 years were called Maintenance Olympics, we eventually decided it would be best to avoid any trademark issues with the International Olympics Committee, as they are very protective of the term“ olympics” and the interlocking rings.
Our first event took place in a small warehouse space on Friday, March 10, 2000 and I recall there were about 60 attendees. The education took place in the afternoon and we enjoyed grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner before the competitions that evening. The games
4 | TRENDS APRIL 2025 www. aamdhq. org