‘Count Me In’: NAGS Innovator and Original AGRSS Member Retires

As the Automotive Glass Replacement Safety Standard™ (AGRSS) 25th anniversary year draws to a close, one of its first committee members is saying farewell to the auto glass industry.

Bud Oliver announced at the Sept. 8, 2025, AGRSS Standards Committee meeting in Reno, Nevada, that he was permanently retiring at the end of the year after over 35 years in the industry. Oliver began working for Mitchell International in 1989. Although he left Mitchell in 2020, he continued to serve the industry, first at Omega EDI and then as a consultant. He’s remained on the AGRSS Standards Committee until this year.

Bud Oliver won the 2022 Carl F. Tompkins Award for Auto Glass Safety.

Mitchell acquired National Auto Glass Specifications (NAGS) in 1991. By 1993, Oliver had unintentionally positioned himself to play an integral role in its continued development.

“I had no idea what NAGS even was at the time,” he says. “Mitchell originally hired me to work on the mechanical parts and labor guides. I taught myself computers because I saw the world was going in that direction.”

Oliver began developing software for Mitchell and ultimately created the first VIN decoder. The company decided his work would be useful for NAGS, too.

“They gave me a copy of the NAGS database and I analyzed it,” he says. “I told them I could make a VIN decoder, but I also noticed structural errors in the database that they should fix.”

Oliver soon found himself focusing solely on NAGS. After reworking the database, he received another assignment that was far more difficult than he had expected.

“They sort of tricked me,” Oliver says. “They asked if I wanted to handle pricing next. I said, ‘Sure, how hard can it be?’ Turns out, it was actually quite the endeavor.”

The more Oliver worked with the NAGS database, the more he learned about the auto glass industry. He became passionate about auto glass safety, and when a group of industry experts proposed creating a formal standard, Oliver said, “Count me in.”

“I just wanted to make sure that things got done properly and no one lost their life because somebody was trying to cut a corner or do something wrong,” he says.

That was a big concern at the time, Oliver says. While many auto glass professionals dedicated themselves to proper installation, plenty of others didn’t seem to care.

“There were way too many technicians who only wanted to slap windshields in and get as many done as possible,” he says. “They didn’t care if it was right, and there was nothing to tell them otherwise.”

That’s why Oliver helped develop the AGRSS Standard. Once the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) affirmed it, he began including it in the NAGS catalog.

Bud Oliver represented Mitchell on AGRR magazine’s 2013 “Industry’s Most Influential” list.

“Literally everyone in the industry got the catalog at the time,” he says.

Adding the Standard raised the catalog’s page count, but Oliver refused to raise its price.

“This is a service we’re doing for the industry,” he said. “I want everybody to be able to see the Standard.”

Oliver was so committed to furthering the Standard that he has only missed one AGRSS Standards Committee Meeting since it was founded. He says the only reason he missed that one was because he’d recently had a major surgery.

“About a month after the surgery, my wife caught me making a plane reservation for the meeting in September,” he says. “She asked what I was doing, and I said I was going to the meeting. She said, ‘No, you’re not.’”

Oliver has had plenty of time to watch the industry grow. He says the spread of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has been one of the most pivotal points for the industry.

“When I started in the industry, there were a lot of old-school glass guys that were resistant to change,” Oliver says. “They’re all retiring. The younger crowd coming in is more ADAS-savy and understands the importance of windshield-mounted camera recalibration. I think they’re more apt to be compliant with the industry standards.”

Just because he’s retiring from the industry doesn’t mean he’s going to lose touch with it. He looks forward to watching the AGRSS Standard continue to grow.

So far in his retirement, Oliver has used his spare time to pursue hobbies like woodworking. After his wife, DJ, retires on Dec. 12, the two plan to enjoy their retirement together with lots of travel plans.