Masami Tanaka, president of the Japan Testing Center for Construction Materials (JTCCM) in Tokyo, Japan, has been elected to the ASTM International board of directors for 2009-2011.

The 25-person ASTM board has responsibility for directing the affairs of ASTM International, one of the largest developers of international voluntary consensus standards in the world.

In addition to leading JTCCM, Mr. Tanaka is also a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan, vice president of the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee, where he works on standardization policy, and vice president of the Institute of International Harmonization for Building and Housing.

In his career, Mr. Tanaka has concentrated on organizational management and standardization policy. Before assuming his current position at the JTCCM, he had been the director general of the Japanese Chemical Industry Association from 1998 to 2007, and also during that period, he served on several Japan Business Federation committees and as a board member of the International Council of Chemical Industry Associations, which includes 26 national member bodies.

A former president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from 2005-2006, Mr. Tanaka has also been an ISO council member. He has served as chair of the Standards Center for Japanese Chemical Industry and the Standing Committee of the Pacific Area Standards Congress. From 1993-1998, he was secretary general of JISC in his capacity as director general of the standards department, Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Mr. Tanaka also participated in the Asia-Pacific Economic Subcommittee on Standards and Conformance.

Mr. Tanaka holds an M.S. in chemical engineering from Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, and an M.Phil. in economics from the University of Sussex, Brighton, England.

 Release #8133/Dec08