Paul Palmes Elected US TAG 176 Chair

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The election results are in for US TAG 176’s latest round of consultant coronations. Only two seats were actually contested, and the results are not surprising to those who understand that the consultants run the show.

For the Chair position, private consultant Paul Palmes beat Johnson Controls’ quality guy Craig Williams. For the contested chair position of SC2 — the powerful subcommittee that authors the ISO 9001 standard — it remains in the vise-like deathgrip of Lorri Hunt, who bested Sheronda Jeffries after a surprisingly energetic contest.

All the other seats were uncontested; not because competing candidates hadn’t been nominated, but because the TAG leadership only allowed the members to vote on single candidates.

The final results are as follows:

• Chair – Paul Palmes (Consultant)
• Vice Chair 1 – Mark Ames (Consultant) – uncontested
• Vice Chair 2 – Jim Cosco (HP)  – uncontested
• SC1 Chair – Govind Ramu (SunPower)  – uncontested
• SC2 Chair – Lorri Hunt (Consultant)
• SC3 Chair – Baskar Kotte (Consultant)  – uncontested

This means that consultants now hold 67% of the TAG leadership slots. Had Williams and Jeffries won their elections, the consultant domination would have dropped to a paltry 33%.

Making matter worse, there are a number of un-elected “appointed” positions, also dominated by private consultants:

• ISO 9004 Expert Charles Cianfrani (consultant)
• TAG Secretary – Dale Isaacs (Consultant)
• Helen Kiesel – Awards (UTC)
• QMP Expert Jack West (Consultant)
• TAG Membership Chair – Baskar Kotte (Consultant)
• Interpretations Expert – Mark Ames (Consultant)
• SPC Chair – Alan Daniels (Boeing)

Factoring in these positions, the consultant dominance grows to 70%. The big winner here is training firm AQS, which can boast having two of its senior managers in the TAG leadership: Mark Ames as TAG Vice Chair, and Dale Isaacs as the official TAG Secretary. Not too shabby, if you don’t mind having your company tarred as profiting from conflicts of interest.

People’s Republic of ANSI

The election was shrouded in the usual controversy. First, it took a lot of external pressure to get the TAG leadership, led by current Chair Alka Jarvis, to even consider nominating more than one person for the Chair slot. Normally, the current Chair names a single candidate who is then unanimously elected, since competing candidates are not allowed.

The leadership defends its “hand-picked single candidate” policy on the argument that it’s theoretically possible a competing candidate can be elected under a “write-in” campaign. But this time the leadership proved it wasn’t sincere about that either.

Three such campaigns were underway — my fake one (let’s not count that), and two others: one for Boeing’s Alan Daniels, and another for Cisco’s Sheronda Jeffries. But to ensure neither could get support from the members as write-in challengers, the leadership reportedly asked members to stop emailing each other regarding election issues, endorsements or commentaries. This sent a chilling message that while the leadership talked about allowing write-in candidates, they weren’t about to allow the members to actually launch a campaign. Once again, the TAG borrowed from Kim Jong Un to get advice on running fair elections.

On a brighter side, any other result might have temporarily hosed up the plan to force reform on the TAG. Had Williams or Jeffries been elected, it would have thrown up enough smoke to make it harder to argue the TAG is off the rails. But with the usual suspects running the show, they unwittingly made it much, much easier to make the case that the TAG is run by self-serving — and now self-appointed (thanks, Paul!) — privateers.