BCA 2010 - ABCB - Australian Building Codes Board

departments throughout the region
where the UBC was used. Members of
those building departments could use
the reports when they encountered
unfamiliar products in the field.
I assumed responsibility of the program
in 1980. In 1983 the charge of the
Research Committee was changed.
Instead of approving individual
evaluation reports, the committee
discussed and approved “acceptance
criteria” for different types of products
on a quarterly basis in an entirely open
and transparent process. The criteria
were drafted by the ICBO technical staff
which received valuable input from
manufacturers, testing laboratories,
consultants and other interested parties
during open hearings. The criteria
included testing requirements, quality
control and installation considerations
for products to be addressed in
evaluation reports.
In 1986, ICBO Evaluation Service
(ICBO ES) was formed as a subsidiary
corporation of ICBO, and I was its
first president. At this same time, the
Research Committee was renamed the
Evaluation Committee. The meetings
and committee deliberations continued
to be open and transparent which is
still the case today with the Evaluation
Committee of ICC-ES. These meetings of
building officials, where the proponents
and opponents of given technical
acceptance criteria have the opportunity
to express their views to make their
cases in open hearings, are one of
the strongest elements of the ICC-ES
evaluation process today.
In the late eighties, ICBO ES began to
address international issues such as
trade in building products and related
challenges of technical recognition.
As president of ICBO ES, I made
many visits to Asia, especially Japan,
where ICBO had just assisted in the
formation of the Japan Conference of
Building Officials with the Ministry of
Construction. ICBO and ICBO ES were
also active in Latin America, especially
Chile and Argentina; and in the Middle
East, where American engineering firms
involved in the development of the oil
industry used the UBC extensively as a
technical reference. I made a number
of presentations with others in South
America which led to ICBO opening an
office in Argentina to promote the UBC
and the organization.
During this period in the United States,
there were still three “model” building
codes being used in different parts of
the country; but the first steps were
being taken towards creating one
set of U.S. building codes, and one
organization to publish those codes.
As far as product evaluation was
concerned, the three different code
organizations had earlier partnered in
1975 to form the National Evaluation
Service (NES). This was a cooperative
effort whereby a manufacturer could
obtain a “National Evaluation Report”
that covered all three U.S. codes. The
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