Vehicle maintenance often happens in a shop, in the field or on the side of a road, but never in front of an audience and never for any type of recognition.

Staff Sgts. Ian Wilding, Delta Company, 141st Brigade Support Battalion and Chris Yoder, Fox Company, 181st Brigade Support Battalion, recently stepped into the limelight after placing first and fourth respectively, in the multi-state Mechanic of the Year competition hosted by the Utah National Guard, August 24-25, 2024.

“We both walked in thinking that we could do well. Our shop foreman jokingly said if you don’t finish in the top five, don’t bother coming home,” Yoder said. “With all the schools and certificates we get for being in the Guard, I knew we would do well.”

The competition brought 26 guard members from 13 different states to participate in a 10-event competition that included both physical and mental events.

“It involved everything around the shop in general,” Yoder said. “We did some welding, torch cutting, GCSS-Army practical exercise. There was an electrical section, and I am pretty good at electrical, but I was like ‘whoa.’”

Wilding agreed on the toughness of some of the events.

“Some of the events were a little over the top, so you have to adapt,” Wilding said.

Wilding and Yoder, both senior mechanics with the Washington National Guard, also have the benefit of working full-time as Title-32 dual-status technicians at the Combined Support Maintenance Shop at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Part of their jobs is to stay up on the latest equipment and platforms in the Army’s inventory.

“We get the chance to go to so many schools,” Yoder said.

Both are also mechanics outside the Guard, finding things to tinker with or work on.

“We call Wilding “Wrench” because he is always working on something, or his wife has him fixing something,” Yoder said. “And I am just a gear head, love working on vehicles. Getting to do this as a career is amazing.”

While they both share a passion for the job, they admit they aren’t perfect at it.

“We get to go to so many schools and learn something new all the time, but when people ask me how I have gotten so good at this, I tell them through screwing up a lot,” Yoder said. “I basically tell them that you will learn from your mess ups and get better.”