LAB QUALITY SOLUTIONS - Key Persons
Steve Pitzer made a good choice on "career day" in his senior year of high school. He job shadowed a local geotechnical engineer for the day, ended up interning at his firm that summer, and continued working there while obtaining his Civil Engineering degree from Cal State Long Beach. Thus began a 20 year career working for various construction materials testing labs. Steve went on to obtain registration as a licensed Civil Engineer in the State of California. After years of engineering and project management he began to notice how quality management was often overlooked in the labs - and how it likely held the solution to many of the problems project managers and engineers have to deal with every day. When he transitioned to the role of Quality Manager for a large multi-facility laboratory, he become intimately familiar with the requirements of the quality system standards that applied to the industry, as well as the fundamental principles of quality management that are behind the different requirements he was learning about. To the end of understanding those principles, he underwent a self study program using primers on quality management and auditing. To test his understanding and ability to apply those principles to the workplace he applied for and passed the certification exams proctored by the American Society for Quality for Certified Quality Auditor and Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence.