Join Henry and Ryan as they reminisce back on the fantastic guests of Season 3. 

Join us in this episode as we sit down with Georgia Harris, a seasoned expert with over 30 years of experience in U.S. Weights and Measures. Georgia’s career includes 5 years with the State of Minnesota and an impressive 28 years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where she made significant contributions before her recent retirement.

In our conversation, Georgia shares insights from her extensive career, including her pivotal role in evaluating and accrediting State weights and measures laboratories and her work ensuring accurate measurements for over 350,000 calibrations each year. She also discusses her involvement in training and proficiency testing for State metrologists and the development of key documentary standards for Weights and Measures field enforcement and laboratory activities. Georgia has not only presented and published widely across the U.S. but also on the global stage, including Canada, Mexico, South Africa, and Colombia.

Her accolades include multiple best paper awards and notable honors such as the MSC Andrew J. Woodington Award, the NCSLI Education and Training Award, and the ASQ Measurement Quality Division Max J. Unis Award. She also served as a liaison to the Measurement Science Conference and held a long tenure on the NCSLI Board of Directors, including a term as President. Tune in to hear about her journey, her insights into the field of metrology, and her experiences from a distinguished career dedicated to advancing measurement science.

On today's episode we have Tony Hamilton, here is a little more information on Tony: Tony Hamilton has more than 20 years of experience in the metrology field. He received his technical training in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear qualified electronics technician. During his six-year stint, he served four years on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), qualifying as a reactor operator, shutdown reactor operator, and reactor technician.

After leaving the Navy in 1997, Tony worked as a nuclear instrument technician at the Surry Power Station in Virginia. In the summer of 2000, he accepted a position as a process instrument technician for Eli Lilly and Company. With a strong background in physics and math, Tony was asked to assist in the Company’s primary calibration laboratory during a restructuring, which began in the summer of 2002. This position became permanent by the end of that year. In 2006, he became the primary metrologist over pressure and vacuum measurement systems, and in 2008 he was promoted to the position of engineer. Tony has calibration experience in many types of water chemistry, electromagnetics – dc/low frequency, mechanical, and thermodynamic measurements. As a metrologist, he was also responsible for the validation, work instruction, maintenance, and training.

Tony has more than 16 years of experience using the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty (GUM) in the development of complex uncertainty budgets. As of June 2021, Tony accepted a quality engineer role as the quality assurance representative for the Company’s primary calibration lab, which has been accredited by the ISO/IEC 17025 since 2008.

In addition to his accomplishments at Lilly, Tony is a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) since 2010, as well as a member of its Measurement Quality Division. He is qualified as an ASQ Certified Calibration Technician and Certified Quality Auditor and is a contributing author to the ASQ Metrology Handbook, 3rd Edition, as well as the 5th Edition of the NCSLI RP - 6, Recommended Practice for Calibration Quality Systems for the Healthcare Industries (2022). Tony earned his Bachelor of Science in business management from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2005.

Tony was accepted and trained as a calibration assessor in 2018, becoming a lead assessor the following year. He is qualified to assess calibration facilities to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017, ANSI/NCSL Z540-1-1994 (R2002), and ANSI/NCSL Z540.3-2006 (R2013), as well as ISO 15195 and its dependent standards, ISO 15193, 15194, 17511, and 18153.

In this episode we have the pleasure of interviewing Cees Veth, a high pressure expert from the Netherlands! Now when we say Cees works with high pressure we mean it... he owns a deadweight standard that produces ~1625 MPa, or 235686.3 PSI!

In the episode we mention the Measure Magazine article featuring Cees. Unfortunately that article is no longer public, but we will update the description if we have a link to share it.

The 2024 NCSL International Conference is coming up July 6th through 11th. Mike Schwartz from Cal Lab Magazine and Cal Lab Solutions joins us to chat about some of the activities, tutorials, and more!

Main page for the conference: https://ncsli.org/mpage/ws_2024

This is a special episode for our General Metrology course coming soon, but also for the release of a fantastic new guidance document on Decision Rules written by Henry Zumbrun, Greg Cenker, and Dilip Shah!

Download the document here: https://mhforce.com/decision-rule-guidance-book-download/

We are not doing a bio at the beginning of this episode because we have done another episode with each of them.

Please check out those episodes here for their individual bios: Dilip Shah: https://metrologytoday.podbean.com/e/s2-e5-dilip-shah/

Greg Cenker: https://metrologytoday.podbean.com/e/industry-risk-concerns-panel-discussion-part-1/

Henry Zumbrun: https://metrologytoday.podbean.com/e/dont-wing-it/

Heather A. Wade, ASQ-CCT, ASQ-CQA is a recognized metrology subject matter expert & internationally sought presenter. She excels at presenting useful and easy-to-implement practices. She is Editor of ASQ's Metrology Handbook, 3rd Edition. She is ASQ Measurement Quality Division's Immediate Past Chair. A graduate of University of Michigan with a B.S. in Biology, Heather has worked as a microbiologist, filter test specialist, laboratory compliance officer, extraction chemist, and analytical chemist before moving full-time into metrology. She brings all her nearly 30 years of professional experience together to provide “Pain Relief for Measurement Headaches” for her consulting clients. Find her on LinkedIn or at www.HeatherWadeGroup.com 

Walter Nowocin is the Life Sciences Product Manager for IndySoft Corporation. Walter works with development, marketing, and sales to ensure that IndySoft is optimized to support calibration quality systems in regulated industries while being compliant with FDA, GMP, and ISO requirements.

Walter has over 40 years of calibration experience with Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device manufacturer, as a Calibration Department Senior Engineering Manager and with the United States Marine Corps as a Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory Master Sergeant.

Walter is Co-Chair of the NCSL International Healthcare Metrology Committee and is the Coordinator of the NCSLI Minnesota Section. Walter is the recipient of the 2023 NCSLI Education and Training Award and is a Co-Author of the Third Edition of the ASQ Metrology Handbook. Walter has a Masters in Engineering Management degree from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota and is a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM). https://www.linkedin.com/in/walter-nowocin-mem-asem-fellow-b7334217/.

The 2024 Measurement Science Conference is coming up this month March 25th - 28th at the Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim CA.

You can find more information at: https://annualconf.msc-conf.com/

Full Schedule: https://annualconf.msc-conf.com/full-event-schedule/

Register: https://web.cvent.com/event/9115288a-69d0-4245-91f4-327953be745c/regProcessStep1

Hotel Information: https://annualconf.msc-conf.com/hotel/

In this episode of the Metrology Today Podcast we have Charles Ellis and Howard Zion on the show to discuss the National Association for Proficiency Testing (NAPT) and proficiency testing in calibration.

Charles Ellis:

Mr. Ellis has over forty years of technical experience in the administration & maintenance of test equipment. Mr. Ellis is a former U.S. Army officer serving first as a calibration technician, and then as an electronic support platoon leader. After serving in the Army, he became a calibration supervisor for a captive third-party calibration laboratory.

For eight years, Mr. Ellis managed calibrations services for various external clients, corporate facilities and 28 district offices for this Midwest testing firm. Mr. Ellis has had formal auditor training to and for ISO 9000, ISO 17025, ISO 13528 and ISO 17043 standards. He has performed numerous assessments to ISO 17025 for several accreditation bodies in the located in US.

Mr. Ellis currently serves on several technical committees related to the test & measurement community. In his last position, he was responsible for the development, growth, and operations, of a non-profit association that provides administration & technical support to the test & measurement community in the area of interlaboratory comparisons / proficiency tests. Mr. Ellis is largely responsible for NAPT becoming the largest metrology proficiency testing provider in North American.

As Mr. Ellis is retired, he still provides technical advice to the National Association for Proficiency Testing when needed. Mr. Ellis has degrees in Electronic Technology and Business. Honors & Awards Besides Numerous Honors for Military Service. Mr. Ells is a recipient of the Andrew J. Woodington Award for Professionalism in Metrology - Issued by Measurement Science Conference

Howard Zion:

Howard Zion is the Sr. Director of Service Application Engineering for Transcat, Inc. He holds a B.S. in Engineering Technology and a M.S. in Industrial Engineering & Management Systems from the University of Central Florida. Mr. Zion is the recipient of the Andrew J. Woodington Award for Professionalism in Metrology presented at the 2019 Measurement Science Conference at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA. Howard has collected a wealth of knowledge in many disciplines during the span of 41 years in Metrology, and has been employed with:

-The United States Air Force (Strategic Air Command - PMEL)

-Lockheed Martin (Electronics and Missile Systems – Calibration Labs)

-NASA-Kennedy Space Center (Standards & Calibration Laboratories)

-Philips Electronics (Broadband Networks – Metrology/Test Engineering)

-Transcat, Inc. (Corporate Resource)

Mr. Zion performs additional duties in various communities and is serving or has previously served in the following roles:

-Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors at the National Association for Proficiency Testing (NAPT)

-Four NCSLI Working Groups: o 151 Healthcare o 163.1 Metrology Descriptions o 164.1 Education o 171 Cal System Resources

-Measurement Science Conference (MSC) Woodington Award Committee

-Advisory board at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC)

-Sponsor for Engineering Capstone projects at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

-Author of white papers on measurement uncertainty and business processes related to Metrology

You may contact Howard at [email protected] or [email protected]

You may contact Chuck at [email protected]

Transcat sells and markets test and measurement instrumentation as well as trusted Metrology services (including accredited calibration, accredited reference standards services, repair, managed services, 3D Metrology, Validation services, Consulting services, and Client-Based Laboratories) to a variety of industries including medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical, biotech engineering, petroleum refining, chemical manufacturing, and public utility. Transcat celebrates its 60th year in business in 2024. For more information, go to www.transcat.com