May 27, 2021 – ALEXANDRIA, VA – Cindy Bennett will retire as the AGMA Foundation Director on May 31, 2021. Bennett has served as the Foundation’s executive director for a combined 11 years during two different tenures, with the most recent starting in 2014.
“Cindy will be leaving the Foundation on solid ground,” notes Dean Burrows, Chair of the AGMA Foundation and President of Gear Motions. “On behalf of the Foundation Trustees and the industry she has served, we thank Cindy for her years of dedicated service, and wish her the very best in retirement.”
During her time at the help of the Foundation she has done a tremendous amount for the gear industry. She built up the scholarship program, providing more than $300,000 in scholarships to students. The program has an 86% retention rate of graduated recipients working in the gear industry. She oversaw the efforts to educate the industry on AGMA’s rich history, as part of the AGMA 100th anniversary celebration, including authoring, “Celebrating 100 Years of Gearing, The History of AGMA,” published in 2016.
In 2017, she worked with the Trustees to chart a new strategic plan for the Foundation. This effort resulted in four new engineering classes, four new operator level classes, and the development of the AGMA National Training Center.
She also led the design and implementation of the AGMA Foundation Get Into Gears Employee Recruitment Toolkit. The toolkit, free to download, is designed to help gear manufacturers and suppliers to the industry recruit people into a great career in the gear industry. The toolkit includes print ads, posters, social media advertisements and more tools that have aided manufacturers in bringing in new employees. Over 200 companies have utilized this free program.
“Cindy led the Foundation with professionalism, and incredible dedication to its mission,” added Justin McCarthy, AGMA Foundation Trustee, and responsible for Business Development at Scot Forge. “She worked hard to make sure that the gear industry was well represented, and that the work that we did always reflected the needs of the manufacturers in our industry.