Features MRO
Supporting the future of AME students

The not-for-profit Aerospace Maintenance Council in the United States holds an annual competition “to celebrate aircraft maintenance technicians and raise awareness of the knowledge and skill required to maintain safe, airworthy aircraft worldwide.” The Aerospace Maintenance Council (AMC) Competition, held during MRO Americas, began in 2014 and has grown to host hundreds of competitors.

There are four team competition categories, including Professional, Military, General Aviation, and School. Teams fly in from as far away as Australia, Colombia and Brazil to compete, in addition to Canadian AME talent typically from  WestJet, Air Canada and the general aviation sector. 

The competition is built around approximately 27 events, 90 teams and 450 competitors. This year, Centennial College is sending the first ever student team from a Canadian college to compete at the April 2025 event. It is an opportunity for the students to gain international experience and test skills.

To select our team fairly, I created two timed events like those held at the AMC competition. The first was a written exam testing knowledge on ATA iSpec 2200 (formerly ATA 100). The second event was the removal and installation of the hydraulic EDP on the #2 Engine on our Canadair CRJ 200 (one of our training aids at Centennial College). There were penalties for not following safety protocol, failure to reference the aircraft maintenance manual, execution of removal and install, and finally proper documentation with a logbook entry and maintenance release of a mock logbook. The two scores were then combined to give us our team of six (five, plus an alternate). The Centennial AMC team includes (pictured above left to right): Jonathan Orizabal, Nicholas Chirrey, Wyatt Branigan, Josh Wityszyn, Sebastian Tagliabue, Liam Felts, and coach Jessica Dizon Burns.

The cost of sending a team to this event, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, comes with a steep bill for flights, hotels and meals – all in U.S. dollars. I floated the thought of sending the first Canadian school team to compete over my social media channels and received an overwhelming amount of support. Of our many supporters, we had three platinum sponsors, including the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), a union that represents several American AMEs and Canadian AMEs, including its new representation of WestJet’s technical operations team and, more recently, members of Jazz technical services. AMFA said it sponsored the team to bring awareness to our craft and to support the next generation of AMEs in Canada.

Gavin Pais, Director of Maintenance for Porter Airlines, also reached out, expressing his support for the next generation of AMEs and asking if Porter could donate a few pairs of flights that could be used as prizes to help raise funds. Centennial College held a silent auction with this donation and was able to raise an amount that would cover the cost of flights to Georgia for the entire our team.

Smart Aviation Maintenance Solutions’ President, Mark Renaldi, sent me a message simply asking, “How can I help?” highlighting the value in sending students to see the worldwide reach of aviation and, more  specifically, aircraft maintenance. Soon after, we had many supporters helping us reach our goal financially to send our team.

With Centennial College having many advanced training aids, our team will be training on mock-up events that the faculty have helped put together, which will mimic some of the events laid out in the event manual supplied by the Aerospace Maintenance Council.

Darren Cook, Senior Manager of Line Maintenance at WestJet, gave me a call after our team was announced, and we began discussing a collaboration with WestJet’s professional team. We have put together a workshop where their professional team can mentor, guide, and give tips to polish our students’ skills. It would give these accomplished WestJet professionals a chance to not only help the students train for the AMC competition, but to also answer questions and concerns the students have in general about the profession. It will also provide Cook and other WestJet leadership attending the workshop with a chance to see the knowledge and abilities of that Centennial’s graduating students as they prepare to enter the aviation workforce. WestJet has also offered to sponsor a team dinner in Georgia, which will give our team a chance to get any competition jitters out while getting last-minute advice.

The AMC competition takes place from April 8 to 9 and will be live-streamed. More information can be found at amccompetition.com. My hope is, that with this exposure, we might be able to get more interest from the Canadian aviation industry and, hopefully, make this an annual program for some of our top students to compete in, where they can display their Canadian talent on an international stage and be mentored by our skilled AME professionals. | W

Jessica Dizon Burns is a professor at Centennial College’s School of Transportation and holds more than 20 years of experience as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer.