Chuck Ehrlich Retires from NIST OWM

Credit: NIST

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Ehrlich will retire from the NIST Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) on January 25, 2025, after 40 years with NIST and a 40-year career in legal metrology and international metrology standards development. Chuck began his career at NIST in 1984 as a staff research physicist and developed the first NIST leak calibration service, overseeing its application in the nationally important Three Mile Island reactor cleanup activities. As the Pressure Group Leader in 1987, he further advanced calibration and measurement services through the development of advanced deadweight pressure gauges and coauthored widely used Recommended Practices, for both the American Vacuum Society (AVS) and the National Conference of Standards Laboratories International (NCSLI).

Chuck served for two years in the NIST Program (Director’s) Office (PO), the last year as a Senior Program Analyst, responsible for PO interaction with the NIST Laboratory Council and the NIST Advanced Technology Program (ATP).  He also served a three-year appointment on the ANSI Executive Standards Council (ExSC), responsible for the procedures and criteria for national and international standards development activities of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Since 2000, Chuck has served as the U.S. International Committee of Legal Metrology (CIML) Member and on the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML) Presidential Council. He has directly participated in or overseen U.S. involvement in nearly 25% of all OIML committee work and project groups, which includes the development and maintenance of the over 150 OIML Standards (or Recommendations) that span commodity transfer and trade, human health and safety, and environmental protection. Given his significance to CIML and OIML, he was elected in 2018 as CIML's First Vice President of OIML, appointed in 2019 as Chair of the Regional Legal Metrology Organization Roundtable, and chosen in 2021 as President of the OIML Conference. Over these two decades, Chuck's international legal metrology leadership has positively impacted the way economies interact in the six key legal metrology regions of the world, including the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and has brought together global metrology leaders in ways that previously did not exist.

Chuck was also the principal in finalizing the development and implementation of the OIML Mutual Acceptance Arrangement (MAA) on Type Evaluation through consensus building between numerous scale industry and international stakeholders, as well as individual U.S. state regulatory bodies through the National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM). With his guidance, the OIML MAA evolved into the OIML Certification System (CS) that provides a “one test, accepted worldwide” international framework for 64 OIML signatories (including the U.S.) to confidently accept test data from another country's laboratories when approving new weighing devices for regulatory applications.

Since 1987, Chuck has been integral to both the Measurement Science Conference (MSC) and NCSLI. He has provided numerous talks, keynote lectures, workshops, panel sessions, and papers that have resulted in two awards related to traceability and the International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM). He served for over 20 years as the NIST Liaison to the NCSLI Intrinsic Standards Committee, helping to shape the understanding of what an intrinsic standard is. Chuck Ehrlich also led the important work of finalizing the 3rd edition of the VIM, and he continues to lead the development of the 4th edition of the VIM. Prior to the creation of the JCGM, Chuck was selected to chair a joint ISO/IEC Committee that, at the time, was responsible for the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM).

Chuck was recently awarded the prestigious Dr. Willie E. May Award for Distinguished Career at NIST “for a forty-year NIST career of leadership in international metrology standards development foundational to enhancing international trade today”, which will be presented to him on January 15, 2025, at the 52^nd NIST Awards Ceremony. He has also been recognized for his contributions and professionalism to the metrology community by receiving the highest awards of the two organizations, the Woodington Award from MSC and the Wildhack Award from NCSLI. He also recently received the Asia Pacific Regional Legal Metrology Forum (APLMF) Distinguished Service Award, and the OIML Medal for “his outstanding contribution to the development of international legal metrology.”

Chuck holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in surface physics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Chuck will continue to work on VIM and GUM activities as a representative of OIML. He will remain an OIML member as a technical expert in legal metrology and serve as a member of the JCGM-WG1: GUM as well as the Chair of the JCGM-WG2: VIM. He will also serve OIML as an observer to the Consultative Committee for Units (CCU) on behalf of TC2 (Quantities and Units). Chuck will also be a NIST Associate for OWM and in the Physical Measurement Laboratory.