This is a very exciting year for AGMA as the organization celebrates its 100-year anniversary. In addition to the anniversary, AGMA President Joe Franklin, jr., who has done an outstanding job at the helm of AGMA for the last 25 years, will retire, and we welcome in our new AGMA President, Matt Croson, who will lead us into the next 100 years. The centennial kicked off in October with a dinner at the AGMA Gear Expo in Detroit and will continue throughout 2016 with a number of exciting events scheduled to celebrate this milestone anniversary.

your life and in your professional career is an inflection point for you to take stock of where you came from and where you are going.

When you graduated from school and made your way into the world, you probably thought you’d learned everything you needed to know to be successful. But those of us who’ve been out in the workforce for some time know that you never stop learning.

Step forward now to help yourself and your industry.

Who wants or needs technical details about gearing? Who cares about it? Three out of every four people who are reading this magazine make up at least 75% of those who have an interest in the subject. The members of AGMA, EUROTRANS, JGMA and JSIM have an interest. All the people attending the Gear Expo in Detroit have an interest. Clearly, however, the people with the most pressing interest in our industry are our customers, the end users of gear products. The unfortunate reality, though, is that in many cases, these customers don't even know that's what they want.

Earlier this year, a relative of mine, Sidney Mandell, tragically passed away. I had the good fortune to serve with Sidney on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Machinery Dealers National Association (MDNA). Though he started before me, his MDNA career and mine overlapped for about 2 years. As I think back on the many things I learned form him, one of his favorite phrases keeps come to mind: "We walk in the footsteps of those who have gone before us."