Although the name of the conference may imply otherwise, this was not a conference on gemstones. A2LA CEO, Lonnie Spires, and A2LA Biosafety Program Manager, Roger Brauninger, traveled to San Diego, California on February 2-4, 2017 to attend and exhibit at the 3rd annual “Emerald Cannabis Conference” sponsored by Emerald Scientific. The 2017 event theme was “Exploring the Science of Cannabis.” The 3rd annual conference attempted to focus on the issues of hard cannabis science and a significant number of the participating organizations were A2LA-accredited. Session topics included “Science and Horticultural Practice” and “Analytical Testing and Sample Schemes.” Many speakers advocated the use of accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025 in their presentations, including Cindy Ludwig of AOCS, Shawn Kassner of Neptune, Jahan Marcu of ASA and Sue Audino, A2LA assessor.

A2LA is proud to announce that Tim Osborne has been appointed to the newly-created position of Senior Director of Training Services. Osborne currently also serves as NCSLI’s VP of Operations and contributes technical expertise to Working Group 44, ISO/IEC 17025:2017.

In response to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) posting of new P25 Compliance Assessment Bulletins (CABs) that outline test procedures for the P25 Compliance Assessment Program (P25 CAP), A2LA is now accepting applications for its P25 Compliance Accreditation Program. Project 25 (P25) is a suite of standards which enable interoperability among digital two-way land mobile radio communications products created by and for public safety professionals1. The accreditation requirements, used in conjunction with ISO/IEC 17025, for this program may be found within R242 – Specific Requirements: Project 25 (P25) Compliance Accreditation Program.

On May 3, 2017 A2LA was pleased to issue its first ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for cannabis testing in the State of Washington. This was a scope expansion recognizing the competence of the Washington State Department of Agriculture - Chemical and Hops Laboratory, located in Yakima, WA in performing multiresidue pesticide analysis of this difficult matrix.

A2LA is proud to announce that it has received recognition as a non-governmental accreditation body (NGAB) from The NELAC Institute (TNI) for accrediting environmental laboratories, using ISO/IEC 17025 and the TNI standard. The National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (NELAP) typically utilizes state accreditation bodies to evaluate and accredit environmental testing laboratories. Recognition as an NGAB identifies A2LA as being equivalent to the state accreditation bodies and confirms that A2LA has demonstrated capability to ensure laboratories’ competence to provide accurate and defensible analytical data analyzing environmental samples using approved methods.

A2LA is proud to announce the accreditation of QSES Inc., located in Shiba, Japan, under the A2LA accreditation program for Field Evaluation Bodies (FEB) that combines ISO/IEC 17020:2012 and NFPA 790/791. FEBs evaluate one-of-a-kind, limited-production, used, or modified electrical equipment that are not listed or field-labeled under a certification program to ensure it complies with applicable codes or standards. FEBs are assessed by A2LA against National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 790 – Standard for Competency of Third-Party Field Evaluation Bodies and NFPA 791 – Recommended Practice and Procedures for Unlabeled Electrical Equipment Evaluation. QSES Inc.’s Scope of Accreditation (Certificate 3914.02) includes field evaluations for Industrial and Process Control Equipment and Semiconductor Fabrication Equipment product categories as established by NFPA 790 Annex C.

CASCO Working Group (WG) 44 held its fifth meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on 20-23 September 2016 at the ISO headquarters. Forty-One delegates and nineteen liaison members were in attendance plus eight additional members via Webex.

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC), a forensic organization administered by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has recently completed its review of the ISO/IEC 17025 standard and approved it for addition to the OSAC Registry of Approved Standards.

A2LA is pleased to announce the accreditation of TEQ Analytical Laboratories to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 for cannabis testing. TEQ Analytical Laboratories, based in Colorado, is the first recreational marijuana laboratory in North America accredited to this international standard. A2LA Biosafety Program Manager, Roger Brauninger, said, “Cannabis testing laboratories that have gained ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation have demonstrated their competence and commitment to rigorous science. In the greatly-scrutinized recreational cannabis industry, we are pleased to have granted the first accreditation of its kind in North America.”