ASNT Newsroom

The ASNT Industry Sector Qualification – Oil & Gas (ISQ – O&G) program is one of many programs that ASNT provides to demonstrate technician capabilities and competency to the NDT industry. As part of the ISQ program, ASNT has compiled feedback on gaps identified from exam pass/fail results and reporting. The document—ISQ Industry Feedback and Gap Analysis—highlights observations and recommendations based on statistical data from all exams since the exam rollout in 2019.

This is the first industry qualification exam analysis provided to the industry. The intent is to focus ultrasonic testing (UT) trainers and service providers on identifying gaps in the training of UT technicians and helping improve the quality of NDT. To learn more about the ISQ program, visit asnt.org/ISQ.

About ASNT Certification Services LLC

ASNT Certification Services LLC was established to manage and operate the certification and accreditation programs of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT). With more than 33,000 certifications issued to NDT professionals worldwide, ASNT Certification Services currently administers four certification programs: ASNT NDT Level III, ASNT NDT Level II, ASNT Central Certification Program (ACCP), and Industrial Radiography Radiation Safety Personnel (IRRSP), and manages the Employer-Based Certification (EBC) Audit Program and the Industry Sector Qualification – Oil & Gas (ISQ – O&G) program.

The American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) announces the recipients of the ASNT Mentoring Award. Three recipients have been honored with the award, which recognizes individuals or organizations/groups in the Society who have shown consistent, outstanding efforts in fostering the careers of nondestructive testing (NDT) colleagues and who have set an example to foster a culture of mentoring within the Society. 

“Being a great mentor requires both skills and passion,” said ASNT Executive Director Neal J. Couture, CAE. “Mentoring is so important to the NDT field, and this year’s award winners exemplify a high caliber of support and commitment to their mentees and to future generations of NDT professionals.” 

Honored for their skill and dedication to supporting others in the field of nondestructive testing (NDT), the ASNT Mentoring award recipients are: 

1. Thomas N. Claytor

Thomas N. Claytor worked at Argonne National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory as a researcher in materials characterization and instrumentation development for NDE applications for 35 years. He is a lifetime member of ASNT and secretary of the Los Alamos Section of ASNT. He has published over 80 reports and five patents, as well as given papers at many conferences. He has mentored 34 graduate and undergraduate students and sponsored PhD research at three major universities. Claytor received mentoring commendations from both Siemens and NASA (2005 and 2007).

2. Nat Y. Faransso

Nat Y. Faransso is an ASNT NDT Level III and ACCP Level III in RT, MT, PT, UT, and VT, and is a CWI. He is an ASNT Past President (2002–2003), served on the ASNT Board (1996–2004), and served as Chair of the Board (2003–2004). Faransso is an ASNT Fellow (class of 1997) and ASME fellow. He has been a member of ASME Section V on NDE and all its subcommittees for more than 30 years. He is a member of ASTM Committee E07 and its NDE subcommittees. He is a recipient of various awards from ASNT, including the Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture (2014), and ASME. He has given multiple presentations at national and international conferences, published multiple articles in ASNT publications, and is an active participant in numerous ASNT publications.

3. Gregory A. Garcia

Gregory A. Garcia is an NDT Level III Engineer-Program Coordinator for EVRAZ North America in Pueblo, Colorado. Garcia is an ASNT NDT Level III in ET, MT, and UT and an ASNT Fellow. He is an ASNT Fellow (class of 2011) and is chair of the Engineering Council and of the Accreditation Committee. His other ASNT involvement includes serving on the Research Council, the Reliability Committee, as an active mentor for the ASNT mentoring program, and as a reviewer for Materials Evaluation and other ASNT publications. Garcia has also served as Director at Large (2016–2019) and is a Regional Director for Region 14. Garcia is a US Marine Corps veteran and has authored/co-authored over 50 publications. He is an active member of ASNT and AREMA Committee 4-Rail, where he is the vice chair of Committee 4, Subcommittee 8 Nondestructive Inspection of Rail. He volunteers as an advocate for the Youth Offender System and is the lead martial arts instructor for the Boys and Girls Club of Pueblo County.

About ASNT

Serving more than 22 000 members and certificate holders worldwide, ASNT, based in Columbus, Ohio, is the largest technical society for NDT professionals. ASNT certification and standards programs, publications, conferences, education, membership, and professional development programs are the foundation for expanding awareness of advancements in NDT. Governed by a volunteer group of officers and directors, ASNT is organized by councils representing interests relating to certification, engineering, research, education, and section operations.

The American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) announces Bernhard R. Tittmann, PhD, as the recipient of the Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture. Tittmann delivered his lecture "A Survey of Contributions to the Development of Instrumentations and Techniques for Material Characterization, Nondestructive testing, and Structural Health Monitoring” at ASNT 2021: The Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture is established in memory of the outstanding contributions to ASNT and the nondestructive testing (NDT) industry by Horace H. Lester, PhD, and Robert F. Mehl, PhD. Lester wrote numerous published articles, fostered techniques, and did seminal work in ASNT committees. Mehl was the first person to use radium for gamma radiography. The purpose of the Honor Lecture is to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the science of NDT. Such contributions may be made in the area of research, applications technology, management, education, equipment development, or other related areas.

Tittmann is the Schell Professor Emeritus and director of the Engineering Nanostructure Characterization Center at the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. He received his BS in physics and mathematics from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and his PhD in solid state physics from the University of California in Los Angeles. He also served on the technical staff in the Materials Mechanics and Physical Electronics Groups at the Science Center of Rockwell International (formerly North American Aviation), before serving as manager of materials characterization from 1979 to 1989. He was the Howard Hughes Fellow in the microwave antenna department of the Hughes Research Lab in Culver City, California, from 1957 to 1962.

Tittmann has been a member of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing since 1980. He is the 2019 recipient of the ASNT Research Recognition for Sustained Excellence and a Fellow of the American Society for Metals (ASM) International, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE). In his career, he has graduated 11 PhD students and 25 MS students, been awarded seven patents and three patent disclosures, and has authored or co-authored more than 480 publications.

About ASNT

Serving more than 22 000 members and certificate holders worldwide, ASNT, based in Columbus, Ohio, is the largest technical society for NDT professionals. ASNT certification and standards programs, publications, conferences, education, membership, and professional development programs are the foundation for expanding awareness of advancements in NDT. Governed by a volunteer group of officers and directors, ASNT is organized by councils representing interests relating to certification, engineering, research, education, and section operations.

(Columbus, OH) -- The recent collapse of a bridge in Pittsburgh illustrates the wisdom of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) which provides $1.2 trillion for improvements in America’s infrastructure. Major improvements to bridges, roads and mechanical systems are clearly needed.

Yet the new legislation continues the federal government practice of affording states wide latitude in how they prioritize projects. Too often, this results in an increased emphasis on new high-profile projects while maintenance of what is already in place is minimized.

If this is going to be the case, then even before new projects are undertaken, a significant commitment to enhanced testing and structural evaluation must be mounted to avoid failures similar to what occurred in Pittsburgh. New construction requires a great deal of time. Meanwhile, older structures remain in service perpetuating ongoing risks in the absence of thorough, sophisticated, yet readily available testing and evaluation.

A class of technologies referred to as Nondestructive Testing (NDT) provides an immediate option for structural assessment. NDT is a process of inspecting, testing, or evaluating materials, components, or assemblies – such as bridges - for discontinuities, or differences in characteristics without destroying the serviceability of the part or system. In other words, when NDT testing is performed, a clear and unambiguous assessment of the integrity of a structure is obtained.

It is unknown if the Pittsburgh bridge was evaluated using visual inspection, which is all that is required by law, but its failure demonstrates the need for similar structures to be evaluated using more advanced methods such as NDT. Additionally, certification using the type of definitive documentation extensively required in NDT protocols, are severely lacking in the in-service bridge inspection industry’s specifications and standards.

To better understand and clearly document the structural integrity of America’s bridges, a more urgent commitment to the application of nondestructive testing is required.

The American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) stands ready to assist government officials and others who will be assessing future preventative measures in their efforts to ensure similar failures can be avoided.

About ASNT

Serving more than 22 000 members and certificate holders worldwide, ASNT, based in Columbus, Ohio, is the largest technical society for NDT professionals. ASNT certification and standards programs, publications, conferences, education, membership, and professional development programs are the foundation for expanding awareness of advancements in NDT. Governed by a volunteer group of officers and directors, ASNT is organized by councils representing interests relating to certification, engineering, research, education, and section operations.

For questions about this statement, email ASNT Marketing and Communication Director Garra Liming at gliming@asnt.org.

The American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) announces that four leaders in the field of nondestructive testing (NDT) have been selected for the 2021 Class of Fellows. Induction of the new Fellows occurred during ASNT Celebrates at ASNT 2021: The Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on 17 November 2021. 

The selection of ASNT’s new Fellows follows a rigorous review of the individual’s contributions to the field of NDT. A Fellow of ASNT is an individual member of the Society who is of outstanding professional distinction, has made significant contributions to the advancement of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and NDT, and has demonstrated tangible impact to the Society and participation at the local and/or national level.

“I am very pleased to welcome ASNT’s 2021 class of Fellows,” said ASNT Executive Director Neal J. Couture, CAE. “The caliber of this year’s class of ASNT Fellows is outstanding and each of our distinguished fellows is recognized for their expertise in NDT.” 

Presenting the 2021 Class of Fellows:

1. David S. Forsyth

Mr. Forsyth is NDE Principal Scientist at Texas Research Institute Austin and has almost 30 years of experience in NDE, specializing in studying NDE reliability and risk assessment. He is a member of NASA’s Engineering Safety Center Technical Discipline Team for NDE. He’s been a member of ASNT since 2005 and has published five book chapters and 30 refereed journal articles, presented more than 130 conference papers, holds one patent, and has one patent pending. He currently serves as Chair of ASNT’s NDT Reliability Studies Committee and as a member of the Research Council. 

2. Stephen D. Holland, PhD

Dr. Holland is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Center for Nondestructive Evaluation (CNDE) at Iowa State University. At CNDE, he serves as the research group leader for the thermal NDE program. Dr. Holland is internationally renowned for his work in the modeling of vibrothermography NDT and in model-based inversion for flash thermography. He is also pioneering “digital twin” methods for NDT data integration and holds a patent for leak detection using structure-borne noise. Dr. Holland has been an ASNT member for 12 years and serves as Vice Chair of the ASNT Iowa Section.

3. Victoria A. Kramb, PhD

Dr. Kramb is Senior Research Engineer at the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) where she serves as the Program Manager for UDRI’s research program “Damage and Materials Property Characterization for Materials State Awareness” and is the group leader for the NDE Engineering research group conducting nondestructive inspection and mechanical behavior studies of metallic and composite materials for industrial and government customers. Dr. Kramb’s current research efforts include NDE method development and high temperature mechanical testing for hypersonic materials. A member of ASNT for more than 20 years, Dr. Kramb has been an inspirational volunteer and mentor with the ASNT Miami Valley Section and frequent presenter at ASNT’s conferences and symposia.

4. C. Deal Moore

Mr. Moore is Vice President of NDT Seals Inc. in Houston, Texas. He is a successful entrepreneur in the NDT manufacturing sector with more than 26 years of innovation and service to the industry. His contributions to NDT include supporting and encouraging women to join the industry, coordination of the first NDT Engineer for a Day for the Duke TIP Academic Adventures program in Houston, coordination of the first NDT Mentoring Program at Aldine High School also in Houston, and participation with the Association of Plant Inspection Professionals in a Texas Workforce Commission–funded Texas Training Consortium supporting NDT education in local community colleges. He’s been an ASNT member for nearly 25 years and an active volunteer at the national level and at the Greater Houston Section, where he has sponsored and helped organize numerous events. He recently completed his term as director at large on the ASNT Board of Directors.

About ASNT

Serving more than 22 000 members and certificate holders worldwide, ASNT, based in Columbus, Ohio, is the largest technical society for NDT professionals. ASNT certification and standards programs, publications, conferences, education, membership, and professional development programs are the foundation for expanding awareness of advancements in NDT. Governed by a volunteer group of officers and directors, ASNT is organized by councils representing interests relating to certification, engineering, research, education, and section operations.