Welcoming Remarks at the ASTM/NBS Symposium on Spreading Resistance Measurements Gaithersburg, Maryland June 13, 1974

Good morning. It is a real pleasure for me to bid you welcome to the ASTM/NBS Symposium on Spreading Resistance Measurements on behalf of the National Bureau of Standards and, in particular, on behalf of the Bureau's Electronic Technology Division. I welcome also your co-host Bob Scace, Chairman of Committee F-l on Electronics of the American Society for Testing and Materials. Sharing this period of welcome with Bob is, I believe, representative of the long continuing cooperation between NBS and ASTM in many fields, always with the common interests of improvements in technology, in methods of measurement and specifications, and in the promotion of sound and effective voluntary standards. Many of you are old friends of NBS and our Division but some are becoming acquainted with us for the first time at this Symposium. I would like to address my first few remarks to these new visitors. I am sure you are aware of the NBS role in maintaining and disseminating the primary standards of measurement for this Nation. But the Bureau carries on an amazingly wide variety of activities in other fields as diverse as pollution control and building research, dental materials and cryogenics, standard reference data and computer research, all stemming from the broad charter established by Congress nearly three quarters of a century ago. Here again in its breadth and subject matter the Bureau's interests parallel those of ASTM to a surprising degree.