People on the Move spotlights trailblazers in standardization, highlighting their latest achievements, advancements, and contributions to the standards community. The
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a government member of the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI), has appointed
Mary H. Saunders to the position of director, Standards Coordination Office. NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S.
Department of Commerce (DOC) that works to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness, enhance economic security, and improve quality of life through the advancement of measurement science, standards, and technology. Ms. Saunders has returned to NIST to take the role of director of the Standards Coordination Office, a newly created high-level office under the associate director for laboratory programs. Her role will be to represent NIST in the standards and conformity assessment community, advising the associate director for laboratory programs and the NIST director on NIST's role within this community and its stakeholder organizations. Immediately before assuming this new role, Ms. Saunders held the position of deputy assistant secretary for manufacturing and services (MAS) in the DOC's
International Trade Administration (ITA). Ms. Saunders has also served as chief of NIST's Standards Services Division, leading policy support for standards and conformity assessment activities for federal agencies. Since first joining NIST in July 1993, she also served as chief of the Global Standards and Information Program and as a program analyst in the Office of the NIST Director. Previously, she spent four years as director of the internal market staff of the DOC's Office of European Community Affairs, where she developed a program to track developments in Europe in the areas of product safety standards, testing and certification and accreditation requirements, and ISO 9000 registration and accreditation. Ms. Saunders is highly active in cross-sector domestic and international standardization and conformity assessment activities. She serves on ANSI's Board of Directors, chairs the National Policy Committee (NPC), and is a member of the Executive Committee (ExCo). She formerly served as co-chair of the Homeland Security Standards Panel (ANSI-HSSP), and chair of the ANSI Regional Standing Committee on Europe, Middle East, and Africa (RSC-E/ME/A). She received the ANSI Meritorious Service Award in 2004. Beyond her extensive ANSI participation, she is a former member of the Board of the National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation (NACLA), and chairs the government's Interagency Committee on Standards Policy, which coordinates federal agency standards-related activities. She received the NIST Bronze Medal in 1995 and 2001, and the DOC Silver Medal in 1999 and 2000. Ms. Saunders has an undergraduate degree in economics and political science from Vanderbilt University and a graduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
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