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In our podcast, we dive deep into metrology, calibration, and proficiency testing bringing you real stories, expert insights, and candid conversations from our 85+ years of combined experience. This isn’t just another technical podcast; we’re here to challenge the status quo, discuss industry changes, and tackle big questions like whether calibration labs are failing to train the next generation or if automation has gone too far. Expect lively discussions, industry leaders as guests, and a little fun along the way. As Howard puts it, “Proficiency testing is checking that transition from theory to application. But what happens when techs are just pushing buttons?” And Chuck adds, “We’re not teaching technicians how to measure anymore—we’re teaching them how to press ‘go.’” Whether we’re reflecting on our journeys—like Howard’s path from Air Force electronics to writing calibration procedures for the NFL—or debating metrology’s future, we promise to keep it engaging, informative, and unfiltered.
Chuck (00:11):
Hello and welcome to ChatNAPT with Chatty Box Chuck in Howie. Today's going to be a great day. We got a really good guest for us today. I'm extremely excited about it. I have a really old friend of mine that's going to be joining us. Howard, it's going to be a beautiful day here where I'm at. What's it like where you're at?
Howard (Howie) Zion (00:29):
It's a good day today. Tomorrow's my wife's birthday and it's going to turn colder possible snow. How do you go from 75 on one day to freezing cold snow temperatures the next day and two days ago we had snow on the ground as well. So this up and down is going to get me sick.
Chuck (00:43):
It's going to be really hard for me to have any sympathy for you because we had tornadoes two days ago.
Howard (Howie) Zion (00:47):
Yes.
Chuck (00:48):
So you're not going to get any from me. I missed where I was at when I lived up in the frozen tundra. We never had tornadoes up there. So I guess you give and take a little bit. Wherever you live in this country, you got to deal with the different atmospheres. So our guest today is Peter Runger. Peter is currently with I-Q-E-I-S. He's the co-founder and executive director. Everyone knows him. I'm very familiar with A two LA. He was the A two LA president CEO from 1996 to 2015. Before that, he was with back when it was called the National Bureau of Standards. We all know it now as the nist. And with that, Peter, welcome to chat now with the AI chatterbox. We are really glad you could join us and spend a few minutes with us talking about, very proud to
Howard (Howie) Zion (01:32):
Have you on as a guest today. Peter.
Peter Unger (01:35):
Thank you very much Chuck and Howard. Good to see you both. It's a beautiful day outside and perhaps in some respects 70 degrees today outside in the Washington dc. Nice. I am very pleased actually to contribute to the whole effort for proficiency testing and the National Association for Proficiency Testing NAPT and serving on the board is a pleasure and I'm looking forward to making contributions where I can.
Howard (Howie) Zion (02:08):
I've known of you for years, decades, and I've seen you at a distance in conferences in the past. I've been in metrology for 42 years and I've attended these conferences since nine. Nine, so about 26 years.
(02:22)
We haven't had a lot of direct interaction, but you've certainly had an influence on the businesses I've worked for over the years. And so at a distance you tend to become bigger than life, right? And you don't even know it yourself when you're doing the things you do every day. But to other people like me, you're bigger than life. So I'm a little bit starstruck having you on here. I'm so glad to have you on the board of directors as well. You have such a depth of knowledge that we need. I'm glad to hear you here,
Chuck (02:51):
Pierre. I'm curious if we should tell the audience about your influence on me 30 years ago, years in how NAPT was even created.
Peter Unger (03:02):
Well, if I remember, you approached me to talk about how you would develop a nonprofit membership organization like HA was to provide the PT service in the calibration area and more power to you. You actually pulled it off. I thought. Yeah, that be great. I didn't think you'd ever be able to make money on it, so it's good. It's a nonprofit.
Chuck (03:34):
Exactly. Well,
Peter Unger (03:37):
But the health concept, learning from what the beginning A to A has always been nonprofit and as a membership organization, it continues to be that way. It took several years to get off the ground, frankly, A to a, it actually started in 1979 and when I, John Locke and I basically discovered management of HOA, we only had like 70 laboratories accredited 5, 6, 7 years after it was established, we finally got actually the automotive industry led by General Motors to actually require their suppliers laboratories to be accredited. That saved us, plus the loans we got. We got loans from American Council of Independent Laboratories. We got work from General Motors, and that got it off the ground. I don't know how you got it off the ground, but it's terrific that you did got the investors to really develop the infrastructure that you needed in order to have a successful competent PT program.
(04:59)
So I definitely encourage you to do that. And from my point of view, getting accreditation bodies to require PT participation by staff, we've always believed from the get go that actual demonstration of competence through professionally testing was extremely, extremely valuable and important in many respects, a prerequisite before we can say a laboratory is competent, how do we know they're competent without having actually tested them? From the beginning when I was with NAV Lab, we always felt that any NAV lab program needed a proficiency testing requirement for us to have confidence that the labs could actually demonstrate that they can get acceptable results. And that has carried over for the last 35 years, and we got it endorsed internationally. It took a while. I know for a few years the Europeans weren't that big on that, but we convinced them that that was something that was essential and regulators, that is
Howard (Howie) Zion (06:19):
Clearly where the rubber meets the road, right? To have that proven test, that blind study test, and it was the right move, Peter, and thank you for pushing that to get that in place.
Peter Unger (06:30):
We're still not there yet, frankly, in some areas where it is available and not necessarily just calibration, there are folks particularly internationally that say, well, yeah, it's available but it's expensive, or we can't send these PTE items around cross country, across national boundaries. There's always difficulties with customs and dealing with those kind of issues, or you can't stand around a regulated substance or there might be import duties tariffs put on. I mean, there are problems with operating internationally. However, for the United States, I think we're lucky and NAPT is lucky to have, I think a significantly large enough market to sustain yourself and not worry too much about offering your services internationally. But you do offer your services internationally?
Chuck (07:50):
Well, we do for Mexico and Canada only. We've had opportunities to go internationally. We run international ILCs for companies. We manage those for certain companies where we take their artifact and we ship it internationally and you hit it right on the head, Peter, those are nothing but a huge logistical nightmare with importing through customs, et cetera, et cetera. It is an absolute nightmare and it's extremely expensive to do those, but we do manage those for what we call the private a private endeavor. But yeah, to that, I want to go back to the beginning, if you will. There's a lot of talk about exactly how A two LA really, I'm half Italian, so I want to use the word major bones. Can you share with the audience exactly what made, when you and John got together, what was your biggest thing that made a 2 0 8 take that next level up? I think I know what it is, but I'm not sure if I'm correct or not. So could you share with us what you guys did?
Peter Unger (09:00):
Well personally, John Locke and myself pulled out our retirement from government to fund us for the first year or two. We got loans again from the A CIL. We got some contract work with General Motors and General Motors. We got a champion to promote a two A within General Motors, convinced all the divisions, the General Motors. We're doing all these second party audits and laboratories with guys that don't know the technology or that they're not experts in the testing. We don't do a good enough job. We need to rely on a third party, A two LA to do accreditations with technical experts too. And so that guy, Chet Grant, was critical to getting Jenna Motors to actually require the laboratories of their supplier network, which is huge to require accreditation. That got us off the ground because then we could get enough income to support a staff of three, and then of course, we grew it into what it is today.
Howard (Howie) Zion (10:28):
Sure, that's phenomenal. But
Peter Unger (10:31):
That was critical. The first couple of years we needed three people. I spent a hell of a lot of time on the road developing assessors. That was actually, to me, it's number one, aside from having proficiency testing available, but number one was have competent assessors to do the face-to-face determination of whether or not the labs were meeting their requirements and demonstrating competence.
Howard (Howie) Zion (11:02):
Yeah, it's not like at that time you didn't have a pool of people to draw from. You had to build that yourself, didn't you?
Peter Unger (11:11):
Again, I learned a hell of a lot from some really fantastic assessors as to what was good to do and what isn't so good to do, and we got involved in training assessors and recruit. Again, to me the number one quality issue for accreditation is the quality of assessors, the face-to-face interactions at a laboratory, the making sure that everything is in place. The laboratory can demonstrate competence and have some management system commitment to keep it in place and competent. We are very fortunate, again, to have folks coming out of the industry to provide those assessor resources. And in the case of calibration, I went out of the way to attend the NCSL on MSC conferences looking for assessors basically, which was critical in the success of the program. The other thing that actually helped us, believe it or not, was convincing NIST to get a NAV lab program going and calibration. That took a while, and of course that also helped to legitimize the whole concept of accreditation. A lot of people in the past said, what government authority do you have in doing accreditation of laboratories? I mean, we got that resistance in the early years of A two LA. The first couple of years, you go to these conferences and we get criticized for who the hell? You're not government. A lot of people expected it needed to be a government program.
(13:10)
We overcame that resistance, fortunately because we actually got good receptions with our international clients or international accreditation bodies in particular, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong. Those three bodies were very early active in providing national accreditation, and we basically, I actually secured their lead trainer for assessors to come over to the United States to train our assessors and actually trained me and John Locke and the others two. Basically, it was a technology transfer, particularly from Australia. Australia's program started after World War ii, and it was basically generated by private sector laboratories that got it started. HOA is the same thing. American cuts of independent laboratories basically created HOA, and they funded it at least the first few years before John and I took over. I think we only had, when we took over, we had, I think 70 laboratories accredited, and that was when A started, I think 1978, and this was 86, 8 years, seven, eight years later, and only had 70 labs for accredited, which was enough to maybe support a couple people, but we needed to get bigger and more. We need to get people to use or require, and that was critical. The critical, the automotive industry, particularly General Motors, basically saved the whole system.
Howard (Howie) Zion (15:04):
My question is that this expectation that it needed to be a government entity for the accreditation, where did that come from? Is that because many other countries only had a government entity?
Peter Unger (15:17):
Yeah, yeah. Well, definitely in Europe there was generated by government, and most of the buddies in Asia are supported and generated by government. If they're not generated by government, they're getting government subsidies, especially for international participation. I'll never forget visiting, I think it was NCSL at a board meeting of NCSL. I'm trying to remember the name of the guy that was the chair. He explicitly, explicitly said, who the hell do you guys think you do with litigation?
Howard (Howie) Zion (16:04):
You stuck with it. And he broke through that.
Peter Unger (16:05):
He was my mind. He lives in Florida, been retired. He's a consultant or has been a consultant, and I'm trying to remember his name. But anyway, not that it matters. It was a legitimate question, what the hell? Why? What makes you think you should be judging the competence of laboratories?
Peter Unger (16:29):
And that's a good
Peter Unger (16:30):
Point. Fortunately, the standards that were written never specified that it had to be government. In fact, ISO fortunately has a definite policy that we do not dictate any form of organizational requirement, private sector, public sector, nonprofit for-profit, so that accreditation bodies can be for-profit, they can be government, they can be nonprofit. There is no restriction if you make no,
Howard (Howie) Zion (17:05):
But regardless of doctrine, perception can override that, and that's what you had to break through. So I commend you on that. That was a hard barrier to break.
Peter Unger (17:14):
I can tell you, by the way, in my experience at NAV lab, and probably we shouldn't capture this, we had a program for asbestos, accrediting asbestos laboratories to support cleaning up public schools for asbestos removal. And nist, at the time, I guess it was MBS at the time, developed a proficient testing program,
(17:54)
And we started out everybody, before you could get accredited, you had to pass the proficiency testing. Well, it turned out a whole bunch of laboratories failed the proficiency testing and of course, denied them accreditation. Well, the laboratories that failed went to Congress, lobbied the Congress to lobby the NIST director or the MBS director that this was unacceptable. It shouldn't be kicking uss out, were legitimate businesses, dah, dah, dah da. The PT program was not legitimate. It wasn't run properly, it was too strict, whatever. And we had to withdraw. We had to basically withdraw the PT requirement and accredit everybody political pressure. And it's like, you know what? Maybe it shouldn't be running the government. Maybe it should be in a private sector where you have people committed, a membership organization are committed to doing the right thing. And that's exactly what NAPT is.
Howard (Howie) Zion (19:02):
Yes,
Peter Unger (19:04):
From my perspective, you guys are committed to doing the right thing, to providing a service that is of value is value added through assure and demonstrate that laboratories are competent to produce decent calibration results. And that to me was the advantage to a LA.
Peter Unger (19:29):
And
Peter Unger (19:30):
We were able to convince actually a lot of private sector types, like General Motors, that was the way to go. But we had to be very careful about writing unrealistically PT requirements. Again, that example was so evident that, geez, if we're subject to political pressure, that is just fundamentally unacceptable.
Howard (Howie) Zion (19:58):
Well, you take a life lesson like that and a business lesson like that, and you turn it around and make it work, and that's exactly what you've done. Both of you,
Peter Unger (20:07):
I don't know. And then of course, individually, I remember there's certain times when there'd be pressure on me as a CEO, and I was very sensitive to the fact that as a CEO, I have the financial responsibility of the organization, which meant I really shouldn't have the responsibility for accreditation decisions because if you kick somebody out, you'll lose their revenue
Howard (Howie) Zion (20:39):
Conflict of interest.
Peter Unger (20:42):
I don't think you have that problem. In fact, I think if PT providers or your customers get bad PT results, they would be more than happy, I would think, to try to correct the record to get back into snuff. But for accreditation, I insisted on having volunteers have nothing to do with the financial health of HOA to make the accreditation decisions. And for that matter, same thing with the assessors. Assessors, state the facts of the situation. Don't be pressured into them lobbying you to, oh, no, no, this is not a problem.
Chuck (21:36):
So what you're saying, if an assessor has a financial interest, they shouldn't be assessing someone
Peter Unger (21:49):
If they have a financial interest in the accreditation.
Chuck (21:52):
So if they had an extra outside interest in the outcome of that assessment, they shouldn't be doing that assessment. That's what you're saying, right?
Peter Unger (22:05):
I think that's legitimate. I think that's the kind of thing where the assessor should have declared under the disclosure or confidentiality policy, not confidentiality, the conflict of interest, policy of the accreditation body
Peter Unger (22:19):
As
Peter Unger (22:19):
You make it known, Hey, you're asking me to do an assessment or an organization that is using my service for PT or should be using my service for pt, that's a problem. That's a huge problem that should never actually happen. There may be situations where the expertise of the assessor is absolutely needed to go into a place where he's done consulting before. Now, if he does consulting, if it hasn't been recent, we had this policy where if you did consulting within the last four years, you shouldn't be doing the assessment of the laboratory. But if it was 10 years ago, maybe that's okay. But nevertheless, you try to avoid that and you have to get multiple assessors to make sure you allow for the possibility that this one expert and there's no other experts to do the assessment, then you got a problem. If that expert has had a previous relationship with the lab, it's supposed to assess.
Howard (Howie) Zion (23:30):
And that just comes down to the integrity of the assessor, right?
Peter Unger (23:34):
You've
Howard (Howie) Zion (23:34):
Got to remove yourself.
Peter Unger (23:37):
That's we actually, the other thing you do when we're vetting an assessor's credential, we want know what they've done in the past, who they work for, and that is if they're going to be assessors, they have to declare all of that stuff. And of course we found that they lie about something, then we can't use 'em. We didn't have too many problems like that. Frankly, when I think back on it, a lot of our assessors were recent retirees that come out, whether it's industry in-house labs or independent labs. A lot of our assessors really at the beginning were industry in-house labs. We had some great assessors out of the automotive industry and the supplier network, which was the focus of our first few years of applicants. And when we branched out into calibration and the reason we branched out into calibration, we were pressured by Europe saying, how can you possibly find that your accreditation is acceptable if you're not properly determining? Your traceability is okay with your calibration community and calibration's traceable to support the testing community. And we got hammered by that, and that's the reason why we pressed NIST NAV lab to get in the business as well as us getting into the business because we weren't going to have an agreement internationally with Europe unless we had, in effect, we authenticate the traceability claims by using accreditation or requiring accreditation. And of course, they accept the occasional exception to that. But that was critical. That's what actually got us into the calibration business.
(25:53)
I remember, remember this vividly, the assessor or the expert, the peer evaluator from Europe that came over to do A two A at the exit briefing. She sat there and was writing the word traceability over and over again on her piece of paper, and she was just, it was actually funny, and that wasn't funny at the time, but he was tracing the word traceability over and over and over again. Says, this is the fundamental problem. We're not going to recognize you until you do something about authenticating your traceability primarily through accreditation. Okay, boom. That's where we came to NCSL and MSC,
(26:48)
And when it came to NIST lobbying, we got to get going with calibration accreditation, otherwise we're not going to get internationally recognized in Europe. And that's how we got going. We always had the feeling we need to have pt. So when Chuck comes along and says, Hey, how do we start a nonprofit PT program? Great. This music in my ears. It was a godsend that you were going to provide this system, Annie, pt, because Europe actually didn't have many programs either, by the way, but they still insisted that they need to be accredited. Experts need to go out and assess them and see they have capability. Maybe the United Kingdom's Calibration accreditation had pt, I am not even sure, but they've been around a long time. It used be the Western European Calibration Cooperation and the WECC wec. They was supporting accreditation back in the eighties, 1980s. And we didn't have that in the United States, nothing like that. In fact, it was in one respect. We were thinking maybe NCSL should start something.
Chuck (28:14):
Oh, thank God they didn't.
Peter Unger (28:17):
Well, A CIL was interested in the testing lab community largely, and they're the ones that pushed. We want to have a nonprofit accreditation body, which was American Association for Laboratory Accreditation at the time, it was known as a a.
Chuck (28:37):
Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Peter Unger (28:39):
Which is another story, by the way.
Chuck (28:41):
Yep, yep. I remember.
Peter Unger (28:43):
Not that I needed to tell you, but there was major embarrassment for the chairman of the board at an international meeting where she was talking about all of this and all of that. And Saudi Arabian delegation was like,
Chuck (28:58):
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah,
Peter Unger (29:01):
You remember that story?
Chuck (29:03):
Yeah, I do.
Peter Unger (29:04):
Gladys Kel came back. We got to change the name, we got to change the name. Oh my god. John Locke and I was there. Okay, what's the name? Got to be American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratories, national Association of Accreditation of Laboratories. It was Nala National Association, N-N-A-A-L. And then at the board meeting, when we print these three alternatives for changing the name, the chemist said, wait a second, it's not the name that's the problem, it's the acronym. Why don't we make it a sub two LA chemical formula? And the mathematician on the board said, no, A squared LA John LA said, let's just make it a two A and we we'll get rid of one of the Civil War canons, the second cell war canon and change it to a two. Luck did
Howard (Howie) Zion (30:03):
That. It's funny how different people's person come into
Peter Unger (30:06):
Play. Nobody. Nobody. We didn't hire anybody to do the logo. It's stuck out like a sore thumb. And was that reminds
Howard (Howie) Zion (30:14):
Me, that reminds me of an engineering joke. What's the difference between the mechanical engineers and civil engineers? Mechanical engineers design the weapons. Civil engineers design the targets.
Chuck (30:29):
Okay, let's move on to the next question. We're not going to get through these questions if Frito, we spent 45 minutes on each question.
Howard (Howie) Zion (30:35):
Oh, I felt this discussion then.
Chuck (30:37):
Next question, Peter. So granted now your nickname for me is going to be MR. Accreditation. So we know that you've spent a lot of time, you built a two LA, you and John Locke together turned into what it is a major, major, major organization. And this little podcast is not going to really cover everything you guys did. We just don't have enough time to give you all the accolades to support everything you did. So let's break it down today for what is one thing that you think that you did that you're really most proud of? Now, I don't probably catch you on the spot, so you might want to take 30 seconds or something to catch on it, but we're curious if
Howard (Howie) Zion (31:17):
The most memorable metrology moment, right? That four M that the question is
Chuck (31:21):
What
Howard (Howie) Zion (31:21):
You're most proud of.
Chuck (31:22):
Yeah. Within A two LA.
Peter Unger (31:25):
Okay. In the early years, John Locke allowed me to travel not only the country, to watch assessors but also travel to visit our counterparts in Asia Pacific. So I went to Australia, I went to New Zealand, I went to Hong Kong, I went to Singapore to begin the negotiation of bilateral recognition, which for us doing, and by the way, also to Canada for the Standards Council of Canada. So I went on all these trips, I watched assessments of those folks and we ended up signing MOUs where we basically recognize each other. That led of course to the idea that, geez, we can't have like 50 plus bilaterals. We need to have a multilateral system. And that's what started the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation. And Europe recognized that as well. We ended up the Western European Calibration Cooperation and the Western European Laboratory accreditation, we lack, I think it was, they got together and said, we just, these bilaterals are ridiculous.
(32:34)
We need to have a multilateral system. And that ended up started at ILAC to put together regional systems which would contribute to an international multilateral arrangement. We hosted the second international Laboratory accreditation conference at the time at Department of Commerce while we were at Nav lab. John Locke and I, and of course that eventually came about, turned into a cooperation in 1986 was incorporated and by the year 2000 we established the ILAC MRA. And my part in it was writing the multilateral peer evaluation requirements and setting up how we go about evaluating each other accreditation bodies. And that to me was my significant accomplishment. The first signing ceremony was in Washington DC in 2000. The second, I think more recent accomplishment that I feel I can take credit for as the ILAC chair. And by the way, A two A supported me for six years, which was quite remarkable. And the last couple of years, what's this international thing? I lobbied or represented ILAC at the World Trade Organizations Technical Barriers to trade committee. The TBT agreement has in a reference to accreditation being a tool to facilitate trade. But what it didn't do, it didn't say what was an acceptable accreditation. And that's what the I-A-C-M-R-A and the IMLA are all about what's an acceptable accreditation. They just put out a guidance document a year ago, conformity assessment guidance for regulators in terms of specifying accreditation on conformity assessment procedures like an IF referenced in that document.
(34:59)
I am personally proud of that accomplishment, even though our present mood for international trade and acceptance of each other's results is not going so well recently. I understand, by the way, maybe this is a rumor, but I understand the German accreditation body, DAC D is not going to join the new ILAC IF merged organization, which is going to be, what's it going to be called?
Chuck (35:35):
Is that global?
Peter Unger (35:36):
Yeah,
Chuck (35:38):
Yeah.
Peter Unger (35:39):
Global Bowl Accreditation Cooperation.
(35:43)
And because our friends, the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Countries Accreditation Body, which is Jack, they took that acronym, so we can use that acronym jack. So it's going to be global or globe back, which there's a lot of debate about that. There's still some folks that don't like that and wanting, it's been incorporated as the global accreditation cooperation in New Zealand and they're not putting to bed. I like an if yet because if has got this huge reserve and since they're incorporated in the United States, US tax law does not allow a nonprofit to take its reserve to another country. So they're spending down the reserve until it's virtually zero before they put ILAC and IF to bed. Very interesting problem. I would've argued, why the hell are we going to New Zealand? Works out very well in the state of Delaware. Have no idea, I guess. Well, I do have an idea. Europeans have always felt that the us, such a litigious society that I only don't want to be incorporated in the United States, which of course they don't understand that where you're incorporated has nothing to do with whether or not probability of getting sued or not. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. But it's the
Howard (Howie) Zion (37:33):
Perception.
Peter Unger (37:35):
It's the perception, oh, we can't be incorporated in the United States. It'll expose us to litigation. No.
Howard (Howie) Zion (37:47):
So is that potentially what's driving Germany away from joining
Peter Unger (37:51):
That? I could not convince them otherwise. In fact, they incorporated ILAC in the Navigo lens, which was presumably the best place within Europe, but incorporated for 50 bucks in Delaware. Absolutely no limitations. I mean every incorporates in Delaware because their laws is the least bureaucratic set of regulations of anywhere in the country. The only thing you had to do was make sure you report your nonprofit status of the IRS. Right. And you're 9 90, 9 90 and it makes you nine reported. I dunno what you have to do. You're incorporated where in Minnesota?
Chuck (38:43):
Yeah, NS of Minnesota.
Peter Unger (38:45):
Yeah. And I presume that doesn't cause you many problems. Yeah,
Howard (Howie) Zion (38:51):
Well if you're trying to shelter money for go back in the Cayman Islands or something. Right. What's the big deal about Delaware?
Peter Unger (38:58):
Yeah, so I just think what's going to happen internationally, I'm not quite sure, but it's a bad sign if the Germans are going to drop out of the system.
Howard (Howie) Zion (39:12):
Yes. It's
Peter Unger (39:14):
What I'm concerned about it. They have been complaining vociferously about US accreditation bodies providing accreditation in Germany. It's not just A two A, it's ANSI or anab. It's PGLA. It's IS, and of course we undermine them because they're much more expensive than their own accreditation bodies.
Howard (Howie) Zion (39:43):
Well, as I understand it, Germany is just using German accreditation and nothing else at this point.
Peter Unger (39:49):
No, that's, yep. There's, they're adamant. In fact, the other countries are adamant about they don't want competition. They have argued to the European Commission many years ago when they decided to put out a regulation that there was only one body per country. No competition is allowed.
(40:14)
And there have been cases, well, in fact the calibration laboratory at the US base in Canada and Germany, our US Army calibration lab wanted to get accredited by HLA and they also provided services to German testing labs. I was approached by them to lobby the German accreditation body to accept their accreditation, our accreditation as acceptable traceability for the German requirement for, and they at the time accepted it. I don't know what else, what is happening recently. My understanding is there's been a lot of complaints and they're going through ILAC in particular complaining about US bodies operating in Europe. And of course they're refusing to accept the MLA agreement, the MRA agreement that A two LA accreditation in Europe. Oh no, it's not acceptable because you're violating the competition requirement. The thing that really bugs me about this is the reason why they did this. Their public reason was competition will lower quality. The real reason was they're protecting the markets for the small countries, the Slovakia of Europe.
Howard (Howie) Zion (41:48):
That
Peter Unger (41:49):
Was the real reason behind it because UCAS and the Netherlands accreditation bodies dominated in Europe and all the small countries complain about it. And they wanted to shut down the market and have their market completely Monopoly.
Howard (Howie) Zion (42:10):
Yeah, monopoly. That's the word that was ringing in my head.
Chuck (42:13):
Okay. We need to move on to Howard's favorite part of the program. This is where Howard gets to ask you some blitzing questions about blitzing personal
Howard (Howie) Zion (42:22):
Questions. Yeah, more fun questions.
Chuck (42:25):
More fun questions. I said
Howard (Howie) Zion (42:27):
Questions. You have extensive commitments. Peter, you travel a lot. How do you fit in any hobbies and what are your hobbies? How do I
Peter Unger (42:38):
Say that again? How do I,
Howard (Howie) Zion (42:40):
You fit in hobbies and what do you do for hobbies outside of traveling and all of the commitments do you have for work? What kind of things do you do in your off time?
Peter Unger (42:51):
Let's see what I do. I work out a lot. Oh, do you? I work out. I play golf. I hike. I'm taking care of with my wife. My mother-in-law has got Alzheimer's, so that keeps me, we got to keep her fit. We got to get her out walking.
(43:12)
You've got a personal trainer for her. She's on about five different drugs and supplements, so forth. And what's amazing about it that she's been diagnosed the last couple years and there's no signs of deterioration. So whatever we're doing are the drugs that she's taking, which it's not a cure, but apparently it's slowing down the deterioration that's been keeping a lot of busy. I have, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of work, I'm helping out four bodies overseas in one fashion. Another training assessors doing internal audits, helping them go through the peer evaluation process. And a couple of us bodies know already that I serve on a NA board. I've done internal audits for 'em, PGLA and a couple other accreditation bodies.
Chuck (44:04):
Side question. I recently made 2 million miles of flying over my lifetime. I must be a novice compared to how many miles you got. You must be like 5 million plus.
Peter Unger (44:18):
No, I know I've hit the 2 million mark, but I haven't kept track of.
Chuck (44:26):
You've got to be up there
Peter Unger (44:30):
A good, I don't think it's, yeah, let me tell you, I see the top 50 cities that have visited, see these occasional ones? I said I've been in probably about 46 of them in terms of I've been to 99 countries. Okay,
Chuck (44:54):
That's what I mean. Yeah,
Howard (Howie) Zion (44:55):
That's incredible.
Peter Unger (44:55):
99 countries in terms of my, you fly different airlines. So I got United as my primary airline, but here in Emirates, Delta, American, I got a little united, I think I've got, I want to say about 380,000 miles. I don't know, something like that. I haven't added enough. You're right, a lot. I had the opportunity in the early years of LAC to represent the Asia Pacific. Folks in Europe and Europe at their meetings and in Europe went around two times a year going to a different country, different city to host their meeting. So I got to virtually every damn European capital, like going to their meetings. Those are the azos for Spain or Jan, a number of places that I never would've been otherwise. Moldova haven't been to every state except for Montana.
Howard (Howie) Zion (46:03):
So of all those places you've traveled, you're talking to a novice, I've been to Canada and I've been to the United States and that's about it, right? Puerto Rico. So we may be taking our first trip to Europe in September, but of all those places you've gone around the world, what are the one or two top places you say I should never miss?
Peter Unger (46:25):
Oh my gosh. Paris and Vienna. I love those cities. RAM and Venice, unique, unique cities, Barcelona, Amsterdam is interesting. And also of course London, Copenhagen, Anslow. And I know you probably won't be able to travel to Russia, but I thought St. Petersburg was fantastic.
Howard (Howie) Zion (46:53):
So we'll probably be going to England, Portugal and Ireland when we go in September. My wife's top destination worldwide. She wants to go to Italy, so that'll probably be our travel next year.
Peter Unger (47:07):
Well, Italy, when I was 21, between my junior and senior years in college, I took a train trip around Europe, landed in Paris, went to Barcelona, Madrid, I did the tour around Italy, stepped in Pisa to see the leaning tower, did a whole bunch of things. And when I was 21, I think that wedded me to being involved in international stuff.
Peter Unger (47:39):
I'm sure.
Peter Unger (47:41):
What was interesting about the outcome engineering major in engineering at Princeton and was a general engineering, systems engineering and my thesis advisor, and I think he was the chairman of the dean of the college, dean of the engineering department, insisted that we all had to get a summer job with a company. And that when we got back the first in the fall, he went around the room and asked everybody, what'd you do for the summer? What was your job in the summer? So everybody's talking about, oh, I work for this company. I went that company, I was in Wall Street or I was in, and he got to me and I said, I traveled Europe. And then what he did, he said next. He didn't even let me anything about it. What did you do to exercise your engineering? Nothing. No, I didn't.
Chuck (48:46):
I
Peter Unger (48:47):
Saw the
Chuck (48:47):
World. I want to thank our guest today. Pete, we have to have you back. Howard, any last words that you have?
Howard (Howie) Zion (48:54):
I have a philosophical statement to make. I wonder if the person who designed the drawing board got it right the first copy. Let that sink in.
Chuck (49:04):
Alright, so with that being said, PCO sponsor NAPT for fun this and remember proficiency testing. It's the only two way you can ensure you have technical competencies by passing a PT test. If you don't use NAPT, participate in some other PT program. We look forward to seeing you on the next podcast.
Howard (Howie) Zion (49:22):
Take care, I'll be out. Thank you very much.