Facilities @ Management

Appendix A Facility Management (FM) Associations

Facility Management

FM in the USA started as an academic idea and concept in the late 1970s that gained exposure from a private commercial furniture company, Herman Miller, Company, then through their research arm, Herman Miller Research Corporation and its Facility Management Institute (FMI) based in Ann Arbor MI USA. By 1978/1979, FMI had been providing FM education seminars to corporate end users (later known as FM professionals) throughout the USA.

A number of these corporate end users who attended FMI seminars met in 1979 with FMI assistance to consider forming a FM association. On May 29, 1980, at a meeting in Houston, TX, USA, sponsored by an end user held at his corporate headquarters was attended by 16 facility management professionals (corporate end users) who agreed to form the National Facility Management Association (NFMA), an independent nonprofit association. In 1982 with the chartering of the Toronto, Canada Chapter, the name was changed to the International Facility Management Association (IFMA).

This FM association chose to grow based on the development of local chapters with FM members using a bottoms-up approach that influenced the development and growth of association and chapter management, membership, networking, programs, services, education, conferences, scholarships, etc. IFMA moved its headquarters operations from Ann Harbor, Michigan to Houston, Texas, USA, in 1984.

As of December 2022, IFMA had over ...