and third place respectively in the school category. The next announcement was the winner.
Ken MacTiernan, chairman of the AMC, delivered the news.
"In first place in the school category, let's hear it for Indian Hills Community College!"
As his students walked on stage, Dunkin stood up to capture the moment on his tablet. Beaming ear to ear, he gave the team thumbs up … a memory that will last forever.
"I had so much pride in them winning last year that I was about to bust, I really was," says Dunkin, senior instructor and professor at Indian Hills Community College. "They did great."
"It was awesome," says Nick Naumann, a member of last year's Indian Hills' team. "I remember when we won last year, we were all kind of in shock a little bit at first. But when it finally settled in, it was awesome."
This was the fourth consecutive year Indian Hills had fielded a team of students in the AMC; its previous best showing was a second-place finish in 2016. Dan Brauhn, adjunct professor at Indian Hills Community College, says teamwork, attitude, and integrity contributed greatly to their victory last year.
"I attribute our first-place win last year to a combination of individuals working together and having a great attitude for team participation," Brauhn says. "Our training here, not only in coaching for the AMC, but also our training in the classroom, it all just came together in the spirit of competition, which also helped push us over the top and took us to the win."
While the win was great for the school and validates that the program is instilling the right skills and values, Dunkin hopes his students take away a greater appreciation for the role technicians fulfill in the industry.
"We want to instill a lot of pride in our industry," he says. "It seems as technicians, we don't always get the gratitude. Everyone looks at the pilot, and rightly so, but what people don't realize is that there's no plane in the world that will fly without a technician. Our students need that push that they are in a prideful industry, and they see that pride at the AMC."
The Aerospace Maintenance Competition Presented by Snap-on will be held during the MRO Americas 2018 Convention
(mroamericas.aviationweek.com/am18/Public/Enter.aspx), April 9-12 in Orlando (www.aerospacecompetition.com).
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MARCH 22-24, 2018