KSQA Loses AS Accreditation, Hands Clients to CB Involved in ProShop Scandal

In a case of “trading up might be trading down,” the beleaguered certification body KSQA finally lost its accreditation to issue AS9100 certificates, but is transferring its remaining clients over to the CB that was accidentally outed by actual clients for having (apparently) stolen their money.

If you recall, Kris Norlander of KSQA was found to have been falsifying AS9100 audits by claiming they were performed on-site when he was actually performing fully-remote audits. He tried this scam with my clients because (I guess?) if you are going to scam, you should scam the last remaining whistleblower in the AS9100 scheme?

We reported him, which led to a 10-month-long scandal of its own. First, we uncovered that KSQA’s accreditation body, IAS, had previously covered up a prior accreditation suspension it had issued to KSQA. After the new scandal, IAS again suspended KSQA and, again, covered that up, refusing to notify the public as required. More complaints were filed, and the IAQG refused to take action against IAS; the IAQG refused to “open” an OASIS complaint on the matter for over eight months, and recently let it shut down automatically for “inactivity.”

Norlander himself had lost his Lead Auditor credentials when Probitas suspended him over the scandal, but it was performative: the suspension was only for two weeks, no doubt to give the appearance that Probitas and its corrupt leader Rich DeMary had done something.

It seemed that IAQG was ignoring it, but it now appears IAQG was taking some action and was just never going to acknowledge Oxebridge as the complainant. KSQA was forced to go through a rash of IAS “witness audits,” one of which included an Oxebridge client. It now seems the full set of witness audits by IAS was never completed, and IAS just pulled the plug on KSQA entirely.

In OASIS, KSQA is now listed as “withdrawn/expired,” and since their accreditation hadn’t actually expired (per the calendar), we can assume IAS withdrew it entirely.

Of course, IAS stil has not notified anyone, and its webpage does not list KSQA as withdrawn. The entry for KSQA on the IAS list of accredited bodies was deleted, however, so it’s clear IAS is (yet again!) scamming the public and refusing to notify them of the problem.

You can’t fully understand how rare this is. CBs never withdraw accreditations. I have to assume that despite ignoring the Oxebridge matter in public, IAQG was pressuring IAS to take action against KSQA no matter what. IAS, its tail between Raj Nathan’s skinny legs, finally complied.

Now, KSQA has notified clients that it is transferring all its AS9100 clients over to the just-as-bad-if-not-worse certification body, SCB IAPMO. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because SCB was outed as a scammer by its own clients during a live webinar.

Back in April of 2024, the sketchy “not quite an ERP program” ProShopERP, and its even-more-sketchy, overcaffeinated salesbro Paul van Metre, gave a webinar announcing that clients using ProShop could get “AS9100 certified in two weeks.” It was a master class in how everyone in the AS9100 supply chain scams everyone else: it was revealed that the client who alleged this — Novo Modo Machining of Mt. Vernon WA — had shut his entire company down for two weeks to pull the stunt, and had only one aerospace job to present during the audit. Then, they revealed that SCB had done Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits back-to-back, a violation of the AS scheme rules. The SCB auditor then used audit time to shoot a commercial video for ProShop, yet another violation of the conflict of interest rules.

The train wreck wasn’t done wrecking, though. During that same event, another client at the same webinar (TAKT) announced that SCB had been contracted for a tw0-day audit but that the auditor left after only four hours, essentially stealing 1.5 days of the client’s money in what is called “theft of service” under US law. The clients, absolutely hypnotized by ProShop marketing, were bragging about having gotten scammed instead of calling their lawyers!

Afterward, van Metre and ProShop scrubbed the tapes of the event (I still have a copy) and demanded I blur out the faces in screenshots I posted. Meanwhile, the IAQG and SCB’s accreditation body, ANAB, all colluded to shut the matter down without any action. ProShop never faced any fallout, the two clients retained their scam AS9100 certifications, and SCB emerged entirely unscathed.

Again: a client said during a live webinar that SCB stole one-and-a-half days of auditing time, and nothing happened.

So now KSQA clients have the peace of mind knowing their AS9100 certifications are moving from a guy who faked their audit reports to an Indonesian hack who fakes audit duration and colludes with a consulting company.

(Note to the lawyers: if there was ever a proper explanation, like “the client misspoke,” none of the parties ever claimed this. Everyone — ProShop, ANAB, IAQG, SCB, Novo Modo Machining, TAKT — all remained entirely silent and never disputed what they said on the video. This is the problem with adopting the silent treatment; we are left to connect the visible dots as best we can. Not a single party has ever contested the reporting to date nor requested a correction.)

I believe they went after KSQA because Norlander’s operation was small; SCB likely has many more clients and brings more money into the scheme, so Shirley Dewi and her outfit are safe. Follow the money, and all that.

While I’m taking a rare victory lap here — scammers, seriously, do not fuck around with Oxebridge clients! — it all has a sour ending. It all just transferred over to another — and possibly worse — CB.

KSQA is still offering ISO 9001 audits, though, for whatever that’s worth.

In the meantime, we have no idea whether any of KSQA’s clients are releasing defective products into the aerospace supply chain, but nobody cares anymore if planes crash.