AMBA CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF SERVICE IN MOLD BUILDING By Liz Stevens, writer, The American Mold Builder
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he American Mold Builders Association (AMBA) is celebrating its golden anniversary during 2023. At 50 years old, the association has hit its stride, now leveraging a half century of history and experience, along with expertise of today’s landscape, challenges and tools. Alongside its community of mold builders, it looks towards a bright future of continued support, advocacy and resource provision. SO, THIS IS WHAT 50 LOOKS LIKE Troy Nix recalled his first assessment of AMBA in 2011 when he became the association’s executive director. “My first impression was that the core of what AMBA provided was unique and valuable,” said Nix, “With a more concentrated effort of data and resource delivery, AMBA would be able to escalate its mission – to be the competitive advantage for US mold builders by creating better business leaders, better organizational contributors and greater bottom-line impact for its members.” Kym Conis, AMBA managing director, has been with the association since the First Resource management team was engaged to run the organization. “The AMBA has weathered a lot of ebbs and tides, but the fact that it has made it through 50 years – which is quite a landmark achievement – validates the strength of the foundation upon which the association originally was built,” she said. “Some of AMBA’s foundational aspects are mutual respect, collective intellect and connectivity. Those have persisted through the decades and through the different phases and changes that the organization has experienced. With that foundation
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remaining strong, members still can look to the association and identify the core aspects that make it what it is. That is one of the reasons why we have endured for 50 years.” For Conis, marking this occasion is a good time to gauge what has worked and to gear up for the future. “Turning 50 gives the AMBA opportunities to not only measure where it has been,” she said, “but also to pause and examine what new opportunities exist that can help the industry get to where it needs to be in the next decade and beyond.” For example, the board of directors has just gone through a strategy initiative, looking three years out. “As we work with AMBA’s board of directors on AMBA’s strategic direction, we truly feel there is no better time to be embarking on the association’s next 50 years,” stated Conis. HELPING MEMBERS AMBA has been helping its membership in a variety of ways over the years. Don Dumoulin, CEO/owner of Precise Tooling Solutions, Inc., Columbus, Indiana, has been an AMBA member for eight years and is the current board president. “The value of the membership to individual members is really three-pronged,” he said. “The first thing is that members are able to benchmark what the competition is doing – our friendly competitors, in most cases – and learn about the best practices in the industry.” Dumoulin pointed out that this might include hearing about business techniques for dealing with delinquent payments from customers, recruiting new workforce candidates, training new hires or learning about the latest technology.