1 http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/ncst/

National Construction Safety Team (NCST)

Advisory Committee (Committee) Meeting

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Gaithersburg, Maryland (via teleconference)

December 21, 2011

Meeting Summary 

Committee Member Attendees: 

Jeremy Isenberg, Chair AECOM

Ronny Coleman Fireforceone

Paul Croce FM Global (retired)

Susan Cutter University of South Carolina

Carlos Fernandez-Pello* University of California, Berkeley 

Jeffrey Garrett CTL Group

Anne Kiremidjian Stanford University

R. Shankar Nair Teng and Associates, Inc. 

James Quiter Arup

Sarah Rice The Preview Group, Inc.

*not in attendance 

NIST Representatives and Contractor Support: 

Shyam Sunder Directory, Engineering Laboratory (EL)

NCST Designated Federal Officer

Linda Acierto Senior Legislative Analyst, Office of Congressional and 

Legislative Affairs

William Grosshandler Deputy Director for Building and Fire Research, EL

Eric Letvin Director, Disaster and Failure Studies Program (DFSP)

Mark Levitan Lead, National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program 

(NWIRP)

Steven McCabe Deputy Director, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction 

Program (NEHRP)

Long Phan Research Structural Engineer, NWIRP

Tina Faecke Administrative Officer, EL Statutory Programs

Michelle Harman Administrative Assistant, DFSP and NEHRP

Francoise Arsenault BRI Consulting Group
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Summary of Discussions

I. Call to Order 

Shyam Sunder, Director of the NIST Engineering Laboratory, welcomed attendees to the 

conference call meeting to finalize the NCST Advisory Committee’s annual report to Congress. 

Jeremy Isenberg, Chair of the NCST Advisory Committee, thanked everyone for their 

participation. After the roll call, he reviewed the charge of the Committee and the purpose of the 

meeting. The members agreed that the vote of a super majority of members present on the 

conference call will constitute approval of the report. The members will vote on the report with 

the understanding that final editing, formatting, and fact checking will be completed by the Chair 

and NIST after the vote. Once this has been done, the report will be sent to members for a final 

review. The Chair will have final authority on any amendments. 

II. Committee Review of Draft Annual Report

Before the conference call, members had received the latest version of the draft report for 

review. During the call, the draft report was displayed for the Committee via WebEx and edited 

in real time by Tina Faecke. 

The members agreed that the first section of the report should be changed from “Summary...” to 

“Introduction” and the second section from “Introduction” to “Background.” The only change to 

the content of the two sections was the addition of “systems” after “buildings” in the last 

sentence of the first paragraph under the new “Background” section. 

The entire section on “NIST Activities in 2011” (starting on page 3) was reorganized to better 

reflect the authorities in the Act. Attendees also clarified the text on the establishment and 

composition of the NIST reconnaissance team deployed to Joplin, Missouri and the postearthquake investigation team sent to Chile (both the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute 

(EERI) and the American Society of Civil Engineers organized the team). In response to a 

member’s question, NIST staff verified that the list of organizations briefed by NIST after the 

Sofa Super Store fire in Charleston, South Carolina is correct as stated in the draft report (in 

addition to the organizations, NIST also briefed Charleston community representatives). Sunder 

stated that an action item for NIST is to brief the International Association of Fire Chiefs. 

The members agreed on three changes to the section “Development of NIST Infrastructure.” In 

the first subsection on the data repository, the members debated the use of “human” versus 

“social” versus “societal” factors affecting pre-disaster mitigation and post-disaster response. 

The Committee agreed to change the sentence to “technical, societal, economic, and human 

factors....” Isenberg remarked that the sentence, as amended, is clearer and more meaningful. He 

added that the language in the annual report does not need to echo exactly the language used by 

NIST for the database, i.e., “technical, social, and economic factors.” A sentence also was added 

to the end of this paragraph clarifying that the repository will include data from NCST 

investigations and other disaster and failure studies. In the second subsection on decision criteria 

and guidelines, a reference was added on the development of the algorithm for decision making. 
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The members reorganized the “Panel Evaluation and Recommendations” section to strengthen 

the recommendation on broadening the Act to include lifeline incidents (making paragraph 1c 

into a separate recommendation 2) and strengthening the language in new section 4a on the 

database software (“NIST should ensure that the database software will be continually supported 

and updated to the latest standards”). A reference to “georeferenced data” also was added to new 

section 4. There was consensus on changing “must” to “should” for consistency in this section 

and other minor changes, including the addition of EERI to the list under section 4d as an 

organization “having acknowledged stature and expertise” (new language). The members also 

agreed to delete the reference to “fire officials” in the last sentence of new section 5a and to add 

that research staff often lack the interest and necessary skills “to implement code changes” under 

new section 5b. 

On completion of the review, the Committee agreed that their comments from the November 

2011 meeting should not be included in the final annual report (the comments are in the meeting 

summary). The Committee members present then voted unanimously to approve the annual 

report. The Chair stated that the final report reflecting the agreed upon changes will be sent to 

members by the end of the week. He asked the members to provide him with any final comments 

on the report by the first week in January. The NIST Office of Congressional and Legislative 

Affairs will coordinate the formal clearance process and transmit the report to Congress.

III. Adjournment

Isenberg thanked the attendees and wished everyone a happy holidays and successful 2012. He 

adjourned the meeting at 5:16 p.m. Eastern Time.