Tina Butcher Retires from NIST OWM

Byline:  Katrice Lippa

Tina G. Butcher retired from the NIST Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) on August 12, 2023, after 35-1/2 years with NIST and a 40-year career in weights and measures. Tina began her career in 1983 as a weights and measures inspector in the Maryland Department of Agriculture, where she inspected and tested a wide range of weighing and measuring devices, such as small and medium capacity scales, vehicle-tank meters, grain moisture meters, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) meters and prepackaged commodities and responded to consumer complaints on a variety of topics.

In 1987, Tina joined the National Bureau of Standards (NBS; now known as NIST) as a physical scientist in the Office of Weights and Measures. Tina was appointed Program Leader for Legal Metrology Devices in 1994, in which capacity she served on numerous national and international technical committees, work groups, and other projects related to the development of standards, test procedures, and type evaluation criteria and policy for weighing and measuring devices as well as the development and implementation of model weights and measures laws, regulations, and test procedures. She has also served as editor to NIST Handbook 44 Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices throughout her tenure with NIST. Tina has also been quite active within numerous National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM) Committees over the years, including serving as technical advisor to the Specifications and Tolerances (S&T) Committee, the NCWM Task Force on Energy Allocation, and the NCWM Task Force on Safety, and as NIST liaison to the Professional Development Committee (PDC). She has also served as the technical advisor to the National Type Evaluation Technical Committee’s Measuring Sector, Weighing Sector, and Grain Moisture Meter Sector and as a member of the Belt-Conveyor Scale Sector, Multiple Dimension Measuring Devices Work Group, Automatic Weighing Systems Work Group, and multiple other NCWM task groups and committees. She received the NCWM Distinguished Service Award in 2012 for her long-term commitment of service and leadership to the NCWM.

Over the years, Tina served as advisor of numerous NIST U.S. National Work Groups for sectors including taximeters, electric vehicle refueling and submetering, and field reference meters. She also managed the National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP) from 1994 until its transition to NCWM in 2000. She continued to serve as a technical advisor to and/or member of various NTEP technical sectors (weighing, measuring, grain analyzer, and belt-conveyor scale systems). Tina was active in work to establish mutual recognition between the NTEP and Measurement Canada on type evaluations of weighing and measuring devices, participating in foundational work to compare requirements, establish checklists and test procedures, and implement administrative processes to support the program. She also served NIST through Developmental Detail appointments as a Program Analyst in both the Program Coordination Office in the NIST Director’s Office in 2002-2003 and in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program in 1991-1992.

Tina was awarded 2 U.S. Department of Commerce's Bronze Medals during her tenure at NIST, first in 1993, to recognize her work in developing national policy and type evaluation criteria for new applications and use of new technology for liquid-volume and mass flow meters. She was awarded a second Bronze medal in 2020, together with Juana Williams and Lisa Warfield, for recognition of their leadership in establishing the U.S. National Work Group for Electric Vehicle Refueling and Submetering, which developed uniform legal metrology requirements adopted in 2019 by the 50 states for electric vehicle refueling and other electric submeter applications.

Tina holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, a master’s degree in technical management from Johns Hopkins University, and more recently, a second master’s degree in learning and performance technology and a graduate certificate in instructional systems design from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Tina has leveraged her education and experience to become a skilled and seasoned professional trainer for OWM and the Weights and Measures community. She has developed and delivered numerous presentations and training seminars on an array of legal metrology topics from general weighing and measuring guidance to liquid measuring meters and small and large scales for a range of applications and instructor training. In the past two years, she has focused on developing new e-learning resources related to retail motor-fuel dispensers (including a blended course format) and consulting with state directors to identify their greatest training needs and preferred learning resource formats. She also championed topic-focused study guides and FAQs in collaboration with other OWM staff for use by weights and measures inspectors and service personnel as professional development tools in the areas of legal metrology devices and prepackaged commodities.

Tina has forged many strong working relationships with many state weights and measures programs and industry representatives who have collaborated with her on the development of a wide range of test procedures and weights and measures training materials and who have generously given the benefit of their expertise to further this work.

We look forward to Tina’s return to OWM as a reemployed annuitant in the latter part of 2023 to continue her work in developing new training platforms using blended learning techniques for legal metrology devices and field inspection applications.