Stephen Potter, managing director at SL Ross Environmental Research, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is the new elected chairman of ASTM International Committee F20 on Hazardous Substances and Materials.

Committee F20 develops ASTM International standards related to the performance, durability, strength of systems and techniques used for the control of oil and hazardous substances spills. The committee has a membership of approximately 100 and has published 57 standards.  

Potter, who joined ASTM International in 1997, also chairs Subcommittee F20.11 on Control. An ASTM fellow who received the Award of Merit in 2008, he also serves on Committee E54 on Homeland Security Applications.

A graduate of the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, where he received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Potter joined SL Ross in 1985 as a research engineer and assumed his current role in 2003. He has been heavily involved in the area of spill response training and contingency planning, and had a major role in the development of instructor notes and lesson plans for the International Maritime Organization Level 2 oil spill training course. He has developed training programs for supervisory personnel and first responders in the Canadian Coast Guard, and had a major role in the evaluation of response capabilities for government and industry groups in Canada, the U.S., California, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, Greenland and Trinidad.

Outside ASTM International, Potter is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. He also serves as editor of the World Catalog of Oil Spill Response Products, which was recently published in its tenth edition.

ASTM PR Contact: Erin K. Brennan, Phone: 610-832-9602; ebrennan@astm.org

Release #9604