Chris Czyryca: The Ultimate Voluntelling Standards Success Story
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Chris Czyryca is the president of Collaborative Testing Services (CTS), Inc., a position that he has held for 10 years. CTS is a private company that provides interlaboratory testing programs to a wide variety of laboratory communities, including: forensics, metals, plastics, wine, agriculture, and especially paper, paperboard and containerboard. During his 26 years at CTS, Czyryca has held overall responsibility for operations in seven of CTS’ 11 programs. Standards and test methods play a key role in evaluating laboratory performance in each program.
Czyryca has also been involved in TAPPI for those 26 years, joining in 1994. He is the current Chair of the Quality and Standards Management Committee (Q&MSC) and has led numerous committees in the Process and Product Quality (P&PQ) and Corrugated Divisions. He has served on two ISO Technical Advisory Groups (TAGS).
Recently, Czyryca was interviewed in the TAPPI Standards & TIPs Action Report (STAR) where he shared some insights from his involvement in TAPPI Standards.
What sparked your interest in Standards?
“When I first joined CTS in 1994, my boss insisted that I get involved with Standards. It was important to the role he wanted me to play within the company and also to the unique position CTS has within the industry and running the interlaboratory program. It was very important that I get involved and share the information that we collect on the performance of those Standards back to the relevant groups. It was a two-way exchange; we would feed information back to the industry groups that were developing Standards and I would gain tremendous knowledge by being involved.”
What would you tell people that have never participated in Standard activities?
“Come join us and become a volunteer! The benefit is vast in terms of individual, professional, and organizational development. It’s an investment of time, but there’s a great benefit and need that isn’t burdensome. Getting involved with one Standard is 25 – 30 min of work (at worst two hours) over a five-year period. Hopefully, you have the bandwidth, resources, and support to do several items of volunteering within the Standards’ world. I encourage anyone that has an interest in the subject of Standards to get involved. You’ll find it very rewarding! I have gained professional connections and lifelong professional learning. I’ve also met great people working with Standards. You get to know some on a personal level, which is also very rewarding.”
“As much as I appreciate the technical knowledge and professional development that I’ve experienced from TAPPI over the years, it’s the connection with people that really made it worthwhile and I always carry it with me.” – Chris Czyryca
Read the full interview.
Join a Standard Specific Interest Group (SSIG) and voluntell your colleagues to join you now so they, too, can experience the benefits of participating.
