News

International Accreditation Service Vision 2008

by Majed Dabdoub, P.E.
Chair, International Accreditation Service Board of Directors
Supervisor, Building Plans Examiner and Analyst, City of Cincinnati, Ohio

Dabdoub

The world is going through a transformation from climate change to green building—and the International Accreditation Service (IAS) and the services it provides can play an important role in helping industry and building regulators by facilitating the transition.

Already, IAS provides 10 accreditation programs that range from building departments, fabricator inspections programs and special inspection agencies to training agencies and curriculum developers, and testing and calibration laboratories. Each of these programs is uniquely designed to offer industry and the regulatory community “best practices” standards by which they can continually improve service, processes and techniques in the 21st century.

We are particularly excited about the Building Department Accreditation program. This program continues to generate tremendous interest from jurisdictions of all sizes across the United States. We’ll continue to grow this program, along with our other accreditation programs, during 2008.

With this vision, we will continue to concentrate on developing and improving our domestic services, but we will also continue to expand our wide range of services at the international level. The international aspect is especially important. Many don’t realize that other countries don’t have the availability of advanced accreditation programs such as ours that can help raise the standards of the building industry and the quality of life for people. We can use our knowledge and experience and the lessons we’ve learned at home to help the building industry around the world improve all aspects of the built environment.

We are also exploring opportunities to develop accreditation programs that support sustainability and green building. To facilitate our vision, we are taking steps to make sure that IAS’s dedicated and knowledgeable staff will have the latest technology, tools and facilities to accomplish our goals.

We can’t wait until the future passes us by—we must think ahead to what happens in 20 years, and prepare ourselves and our members to respond with solutions today.