ASTM President Andy Kireta on the importance of SDO partnerships and the future of standards.

By Andy G. Kireta Jr.

Sep 04, 2025

In my short time at the helm of ASTM International, I’ve had the privilege of meeting with partner standards-developing organizations across the globe. ISO and IEC (Switzerland); KSA, KATS, KCL (Korea); JSA and MOTIE (Japan); Enterprise Singapore (Singapore); DIN and DKE (Germany); BSI and Energy Institute (United Kingdom); UNE/Aenor (Spain); CSA (Canada); and a host of U.S.-based SDOs like ASME, ANSI, ICC, IAPMO, NFPA, AASHTO, and many more. Over the course of robust, enlightening, and enriching discussions about opportunities, challenges, risks, strategies, and visions, I’ve learned that while we are all unique, we’re more alike than we are different. 

We all create valuable, technical knowledge and intellectual property that in the end serves the same goals of safety, reliability, and performance of the products, processes, systems, and services that society relies on every day. 

We engage with our public sector, government, and regulatory partners through different types of relationships, but our standards form the basis for effective regulation and conformity assessment. 

We all have different pathways to reaching consensus and engage different stakeholders to get there, but we rely on the collective voice of thought to the committees. They also serve as valuable proving grounds for students to build technical skills, create industry connections and relationships, and build the soft skills on which success in their careers will be built – collaboration, dispute resolution, and exercising influence without power. We’ve also put the tools in place to allow our 147 technical committees to engage students as active members of their committees and catalysts for new thought, innovation, and energy. Innovators who will help to empower the evolution of standards in existing industries, adapting to the needs of changing markets. 

Many of our partner SDOs have similar programs, and we’re eagerly learning how they’re driving recognition of the benefits of standards participation earlier in technical and professional education and early-stage careers. 

Not surprisingly, many of our standards innovators of tomorrow are coming from the emerging technologies of today – AI, quantum mechanics, advanced manufacturing, biopharm, sustainable fuels, space technologies. Fast-moving, build fast/fail fast industries where standardization is often historically seen as an afterthought at best, an innovation impediment at worst. Industries where highly skilled, highly technical, high-speed innovators will become the standards developers of the future. That’s why, through the ASTM/NIST ASCET Center of Excellence (www.ascet.com) we’re working to drive the benefits of standardization and standards workforce development home with early innovation as a technology enabler and accelerator in critical and emerging technologies. 

But we’re aware that innovation isn’t the sole province of new technologies and new industries. That’s why we’re also reinvesting in research to standardization (R2S) projects collaboratively with our technical committees across our existing industries and technology spaces. 

We believe that effective standardization, empowered by engaged and innovative standards developers, is the necessary foundation of trust, trade, and transformation of the future. 

I’m glad you all are part of that foundation. ● 

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