The field of competition for the first-ever Auto Glass Technician Olympics has grown substantially with those registered to battle it out for the title of "World's Best Auto Glass Technician," and among those signed up to compete are three employees at Cascade Auto Glass.

Eric Thibodeau, Justin Brooks and Mickey Briggs will represent the company at the event in October, though they are far from the only technicians at the company who were interested in competing.

"There was a lot of excitement in our company. A lot of the guys wanted to get involved," said Paul Sharkey, president of Cascade.

"We have different regions of the company and felt it wasn't fair to pick just one person to represent the company. The regional managers and Paul sat down and tried to determine how we were going to get our guys involved in it and who would go. We took a vote and came up with three guys we felt would be the best to send," explained the national operations manager for the company. "The guys that did get nominated for it are really dedicated, do a really good job."

The AG Technician Olympics will be held at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas October 16-18, 2005 and competitive slots are open until September 26, 2005.

The event offers a grand prize of $5,000 (plus a gold medal and bragging rights as "World's Best Auto Glass Technician") and is co-sponsored by AGRR magazine and the IGA.

The industry is buzzing about the event, and the employees at Cascade are no exception.

"Everyone is really excited about it. For our technicians, this is one of the most exciting things to happen," said Sharkey.
So much so, in fact, that the three Cascade competitors will have plenty of people cheering them on.

"We have about 15 people to come, some on their own dime just to come watch the competition," said Sharkey.

Sharkey sees the opportunity offered by the Auto Glass Technician Olympics as a good one for the industry, and one that has the potential for some wide-reaching effects.

"If this gets 1/10 publicity that the 20/20 expose brought to the industry, if someone picks it up somehow, it … will be a good thing for the industry, to show there is a competition, that there are standards people are trying to follow," said Sharkey.

The Auto Glass Technician Olympics begins right after the first ever AGRSS Conference to be held at the same location October 16-17.