Stranaska Scientific Staff 2019 Measurement Standards and Services Division
Front Row: Alex Hartwell, Melissa Hartwell, Doug Martinez
Back Row: Jerry Messman, Marla Messman, Sharra Baeighkley
As a former leader of NIST’s high-accuracy chemical spectrophotometry program, Dr. Jerry Messman leverages his prior work knowledge and experiences in the national metrology institute (NMI) setting to instill a unique calibration laboratory culture and training mindset in analytical spectrophotometric metrology. A meticulous scientific approach ensures metrological rigor and measurement data integrity. In stark contrast, Stranaska’s unparalleled transparency and strength of the educational and analytical measurement science credentials of its management and staff is readily distinguishable from that of competing laboratories, even ones with accreditation status, which offer recertification services for spectrophotometer measurement standards.
The current Stranaska Scientific laboratory team in the measurement standards and services division is comprised of highly motivated and energized professionals. As the world-wide leader in analytical UV/VIS spectrophotometric metrology, Stranaska Scientific clearly recognizes the importance of meaningful quality training and is uncompromised in its relentless effort in striving to ensure that its laboratory staff has strong and verifiable credentials in physics, chemistry, mathematics and statistics. Management and staff work closely together in developing and maintaining the company’s quality management system, and health and safety program, as part of the company’s collective efforts in preparation for ISO 17025 laboratory accreditation.
Some calibration service suppliers depend solely on the merits of laboratory accreditation as documented proof of their measurement science acumen, and the documented training of their laboratory staff is valued merely from a compliance perspective. Some customer laboratories requiring calibration services restrict their vendor approval lists using documented accreditation as the sole criterion while risking the exclusion of unaccredited calibration service suppliers which may have unparalleled measurement science acumen. Without considering other important science-based factors, such short sightedness may actually be so detrimental that it can jeopardize the scientific integrity of the analytical measurements and which, for the customer, may result unwittingly in a risky laboratory measurement assurance practice.
In a critical scientific field such as analytical UV/VIS spectrophotometric metrology, the potential advantages and benefits of laboratory accreditation and other laboratory quality management systems may not be fully realized, and possibly even negated, if the calibration laboratory does not have qualified technical staff with professional credentials and properly trained to work within the framework of its quality system. If the laboratory management is not sufficiently knowledgeable in the laboratory science being practiced, and the laboratory staff is not properly credentialed and trained in a meaningful and robust manner, it is possible that they will be incapable of recognizing, developing and implementing rigorous science-based procedures that will be necessary to facilitate the scientific and metrological defensibility of the measurement results. In the unfortunate event that this occurs, laboratory accreditation and other laboratory quality management systems may be ineffective as the primary tool and indicator of analytical measurement quality assurance.
