Calling all Maintenance Maniacs: affiliates are invited to conduct local Maintenance Mania competitions.

Few in the apartment industry take greater pride in their communities than maintenance professionals. Their efforts and attitudes toward providing outstanding, timely service is one of any apartment management company's greatest assets.

NAA, together with presenting sponsor The Home Depot Supply (THDS), in an effort to recognize and reward this excellence, will conduct Maintenance Mania events at local apartment associations. These competitions will give maintenance professionals the opportunity to compete and earn honors as the nation's top team of maintenance professionals.

Maintenance Mania will provide a platform for NAA and its local affiliates to increase maintenance managements' and technicians' involvement in the apartment associations. It will promote the Certified Apartment Maintenance Technician (CAMT) training program that is offered by NAAEI and sponsored by THDS. Maintenance Mania will help to raise funds for education programs at the national and local levels and will establish THDS as a leader in providing training for maintenance professionals.

"The maintenance tech is often the most over looked--but most important--staff member on a property," said Mark Franks, Executive Vice President, GCNKAA. "He or she is often the reason a potential resident signs a lease or a happy resident renews one. It is important that we continually offer them educational opportunities as well as get them involved in the association at a local level."

How It Works

The Maintenance Mania competition will consist of seven timed competition events. For each competition, there are six skill-based competitive events, and a racecar competition will serve as the seventh event. The six skill-based competitive events involve common maintenance work order areas, such as plumbing, locksets and smoke alarms. All apartment industry professionals in the affiliate's area can compete individually in any or all of the seven events. The affiliate will award "Maintenance Maniac" event awards to the fastest three competitors in each event.

For those who are competitive by nature and want to compete against others in the country, here's the chance. NAA and THDS will conduct the National Championship each year at NAA's Education Conference & Exposition. For maintenance technicians to qualify to represent their regions at the National Championships, they must enter the local affiliates' Maintenance Mania event with a teammate.

Each member of the two-member team must compete individually in each skill competition. Each team also enters a car that it builds together in the racecar competition. A team's total combined time will be the sum total of each team member's individual times in the six skill competition events and the time of two runs in the racecar competition. An affiliate's three fastest qualifying teams will be submitted to NAA and will be eligible to be the Maintenance Mania regional winners. NAA will publish the winning times of each local competition and the regional leaders in UNITS.

In May 2007, NAA will announce the top two teams in each Maintenance Mania region who will then advance to compete in the finals at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, June 28-30, as part of the 2007 NAA Education Conference & Exposition. Regional winners will receive free air fare, hotel accommodations and a conference registration as reward for representing their region in the National Championships. Maintenance Mania competition awards and THDS gift cards will also be presented to the top three teams.

The Events

* Door Lockset Installation. Competitors will remove an old lockset and install a new lockset.

* Faucet Installation. Competitors will remove an old faucet, pop-up assembly, supply lines and drain pipe from a sink and install a new faucet with pop-up and supply lines.

* Garbage Disposal Installation. Competitors must remove an old disposal and waste pipe and install new ones.

* Blind Tool ID. Competitors select tools in a specified order from a box filled with the tools and other items without seeing inside the box.

* Light Bulb Installation. Competitors remove an old lamp and install a new lamp with a telescopic bulb changer pole.

* Smoke Detector Installation. Competitors remove an old smoke detector and install a new alarm with battery.

* Racecar Competition. Using a Pinewood-Derby-style model racecar, built from standard maintenance products within competition guidelines and using competition wheels, competitors will race their cars down a Pinewood-Derby-approved double racetrack.

First-round events will be conducted by local affiliates. The first event is Sept. 21 at the Radisson Hotel in Cincinnati and will be hosted by the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association. The Apartment Association of Kansas City will host an event on Sept. 26, the Greater Philadelphia Apartment Association on Oct. 4, the Utah Apartment Association on Oct. 18, and the Triad Apartment Association on Nov. 8. Details, complete rules and competition schedules are posted at www.naahq.org. All affiliates are encouraged to host events. Members interested in hosting their own competitions are asked to contact their local apartment associations. Affiliates are required to give NAA at least 90 days' notice prior to conducting an event so NAA and THDS have enough time to properly plan and schedule events.

For information on Maintenance Mania, visit www.naahq.org.