ABMA’s committees address critical issues impacting the global bearing industry and enhance the value of membership in association. Committees are made up of volunteers from member companies and is the engine for many of ABMA’s programs and services. These committees create a special partnership with ABMA staff to accomplish the overall strategic plan for ABMA and its members.
At a minimum, each committee meets twice a year face-to-face at the Annual and Fall Meetings, supplemented by conference calls and virtual meetings when necessary.
Joining an ABMA committee is a great way to network with your peers while making a difference in the association that YOU are a member of. Enhance the future of your career and the bearings industry as a whole by joining on one of the committees listed below.
For additional information regarding any of ABMA’s committees please contact us at [email protected]
Anti-Counterfeiting Committee
The anti-counterfeiting committee focuses domestically on attacking the issue of counterfeit bearings and protecting the U.S. borders. This committee has built an effective partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection within the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Center. ABMA has also partnered with the Bearing Specialists Association (BSA) through the committee to engage distributors and OEMs in the fight against this important issue.
Associate Council
The associate council offers a voice to our associate members with the ability to influence the strategic direction of the association and create a platform to focus on the supplier relationship. The chair of this council also has a voting seat on the ABMA board of directors.
Bearing Technical Committee
The Bearing Technical Committee is responsible for the creation and maintenance of American National Standards for bearings and has a membership of bearing producers, users, and general interest experts. The association also serves as the focal point within the United States for the development of ISO bearing standards that can be adopted as American National Standards through ISO TC 4 – Rolling Bearings. ABMA standards address critical bearing topics, from design and analysis; manufacturing and quality; materials, metallurgy, and heat treatment; operation, maintenance, lubrication, and efficiency; and bearing failure.
The committee’s current focus is the reaffirmation and revision of ABMA standards.
Education Committee
The education committee oversees the association’s curriculum and new course development for continuing education program focused on engineers working with bearings. Its primary focus it to build a continuous, education program to support bearing engineers and other engineering professionals around the world and develop educational programs and enduring materials on the bearings industry. The current committee is comprised of representatives from twelve member companies.
A subset of the committee, the Development Team working with ABMA staff, leads new program development and is made up committee chair Les Miller, Kaydon’s VP Engineering, lead course instructor Dan Snyder, Former Director of Application Engineering for SKF USA Inc and Course Instructor Michael Kotzalas, Timken’s Chief Engineer Product Design—Global TRB.
This committee was influential in the re-imagined Advanced and Essential Concepts Course in 2010 and creation of the Basics of Bearings online course prerequisite. The revised curriculums give participants group exercises throughout the course for immediate real world application of bearing theory.