[This is breaking news, and may be updated.]
Oxebridge has confirmed that longtime ISO TC 176 leader Lorri Hunt has resigned from all duties related to ISO standards development. In an email to TC 176, Hunt claimed the move was to allow her to “create better work / life balance and flexibility with my schedule.”
Hunt had previously worked at Honeywell, and later became a protege to the US TAG to TC 176’s Chair, Jack West. As West stepped aside from active duties due to age, Hunt stepped up and effectively took his place as de facto leader of the US TAG despite not holding the Chair seat herself. She later left Honeywell and worked exclusively for her own ISO consulting firm, Lorri Hunt & Associates.
Hunt has been a controversial personality on the committee, often overlapping her official duties with those of her ISO consulting work. She was a major figure behind a number of controversies surrounding the US TAG, but she was consistently granted additional responsibilities regardless. Her aggressive actions at committee meetings often rankled representatives from Europe and other regions.
At a meeting in 2015, Hunt presented official slides calling risk-based thinking “the biggest boon to consultants ever.” She later went on to sell seminars and books on ISO 9001 and risk-based thinking. Hunt’s behavior in the ISO community was seen as endemic to the problem of consultants benefitting financially when standards are made more confusing than necessary, thus requiring consultants to decipher them.
Around 2005, Hunt announced at an open session of the US TAG that she had cancer. She would go on to make her illnesses a part of her personality at meetings, a factor that may have led to her increased responsibilities as figures such as West began to give her broad deference due to her health problems.
UPDATED 26 April 2024: The report is now confirmed, and additional language from Hunt’s email was added.
