Advancing my career through the CMRP

The CMRP of the Year awards were established by the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals to recognize individuals for their leadership capabilities, achievements and commitment to continuing education.

By Christopher Mears, Aerospace Testing Alliance, Arnold Engineering Development Co July 28, 2014

Last October at the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals Annual Conference in Indianapolis, I accepted the award for the CMRP of the Year in the Rising Leader category. I was privileged to pass the Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP) exam extremely early in my career and it was truly a unique honor to be recognized as a rising leader amongst all of the distinguished CMRPs around the world.

I decided to take the CMRP exam after my professional mentors advised that it would validate my maintenance and reliability skills and qualifications. With its coverage of five different areas – business and management, manufacturing process reliability, equipment reliability, organization and leadership, and work management – I felt that the CMRP exam would best demonstrate my skills set. My company and employer realized the value of the certification and earning it helped me to immediately develop and advance my career. Shortly after gaining this certification, I had the opportunity to manage multiple multi-million dollar, multi-year maintenance and reliability efforts over the next few years. Additionally, I was sent to other Jacobs Engineering industrial sites across the country to assist them with maintenance and reliability training and improvements.

It was not long after that when I achieved my next career goal of becoming manager of a maintenance and reliability organization responsible for reliability analysis, condition-based maintenance, and other maintenance support functions. In fact, my company so promoted the value of the CMRP that it was specifically listed as an important element on the job announcement for this management position. I am confident that this certification will continue to be a value throughout the remainder of my career, particularly if I am able to attain positions further up the management chain over a maintenance and reliability organization.

CMRP of the Year Award

The CMRP of the Year awards were established by the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals last year in order to recognize individuals for their leadership capabilities, achievements and commitment to continuing education. The committee selected two winners; one as the veteran professional and one as the rising leader.

I was incredibly fortunate to be selected as the rising leader CMRP of the Year and for me it was another opportunity to promote this certification within my company as a young manager, and within my SMRP chapter as a chapter officer.

Additionally, the award was an opportunity to convince facility managers across different industries of the value that this certification can provide to their team members (management and non-management alike), not only for their individual careers but also for the overall well-being and health of their organizations.

Maintenance and reliability often go overlooked until there is a problem with the facility resulting in dissatisfaction with the customer or upper management. I believe that executives and upper management are beginning to invest in hiring maintenance and reliability practitioners to prevent incidents and downtime, and the CMRP certification is the best way to identify the most knowledgeable and qualified professionals.

I encourage you to nominate a deserving CMRP professional so that we may recognize both his/ her achievements and also draw attention to the importance of this certification program. Self-nominations are also welcomed and encouraged.

Visit www.smrp.org/cmrp for more information or to nominate a colleague. Nomination period ends July 31.

Edited by Brittany Merchut, Project Manager, CFE Media, bmerchut(at)cfemedia.com