Dec 01, 2006

Sandra L. Niks, manager of engineering standards for General Motors Corporation in Warren, Mich., has been elected to the ASTM International board of directors for 2007-2009.

Niks lives in Rochester Hills, Mich.

An ASTM member since 1986, Niks is currently vice chair of Committee D14 on Adhesives, which includes about 150 members who are responsible for more than 130 standards. In addition, she is chair of Subcommittee D14.40 on Adhesives for Plastics, which oversees more than a dozen standards. Niks served as D14 secretary from 1995 to 2000.

In her current position, Niks records information about and publishes GM’S worldwide engineering standards, as she builds standards expertise within the company. Niks, GM’s standards expert, also oversees external engineering standards activities for GM.

Niks began her career with GM as a science assistant in 1976, the year after she earned her B.Sc. in chemistry from Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich. While in that role, which included research on developing adhesive formulations, she completed her master of science in the economic aspects of chemistry at the University of Detroit, Mich. Niks became a project engineer in 1985 and a senior project engineer in 1992.

From 1988 to 1993, Niks chaired the GM Corporate Adhesives Committee. As the chair, she facilitated a committee responsible for updating corporate adhesive specifications, establishing standard specification templates, organizing technology development information to facilitate communication between divisions and compiling corporate adhesive specifications into one publication.

Before assuming her current role as GM’s manager of engineering standards in 1998, Niks also had been acting manager, new devices (unsolicited technologies sent to GM by private individuals for consideration). She then became manager of document management and new devices, which included responsibility for patent review, new devices review, internal standards publication and distribution, external standards activities, and expanded document management activities.

A longtime member of the American Chemical Society, Niks is also an active member of SAE International, where she works on the Automotive Adhesives Committee; the Materials, Parts, and Processes Council, of which she is also a past chair; and the Technical Standards Board.

Release #7560