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THE NEW MILLENNIUM
meeting during the Annual Assembly in Lisbon, Portugal in 1999.
Mrs Rute Ferraz (Portugal) became the Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) of the IIW IAB and was to play a vital role in the
overall administration of IAB activities. With appointments
of other positions finalised, the required infrastructure was
then put in place for the commencement of one of the most
important initiatives ever taken by IIW – the implementation
of a harmonised global education, training, qualification and
certification scheme.
Working Groups on regional activities and liaison
with developing countries, championed by Mr Chris
Smallbone (Australia), and the environment, championed
by Mr Bertil Pekkari (Sweden) reflected IIW’s sensitivity
to contemporary world issues. These were core initiatives that became embedded in IIW’s
planning cycle. Their establishment reinforced a need for action on both these issues
which were of great import to both developed and emerging nations alike. Smallbone,
an irrepressible personality who disliked the second rate, could always be relied on for
new ideas on how to promote and improve the status of IIW. He was often heard to say
that success came from two attributes, ‘enthusiasm and persistence’. A keen believer in
technology diffusion, Smallbone was also the driving force behind IIW International
Congresses which had been held since 1988 and provided nations in emerging regions with
a means of becoming acquainted with the benefits that membership of IIW could bring.
Apart from promoting appropriate welding technologies, Congresses
brought together people from industry, government and training bodies to
share ideas on how the improvement of welding in the region could lead
to raising the general quality of life of people through the IIW WeldCare
programme. These events, hosted by Member Societies for their regions,
proved to have a positive impact in attracting new members to IIW.
Membership increased significantly from what was a static level of around
38-40 Member Countries over the previous 10 years, many unfinancial, to a
total of 48 members in 2005.
The development of standards, as well as IIW’s relationship with ISO, continued to be
in the spotlight in the late 1990s. IIW received strong criticism from the floor when Mr H-J
Krause, the national delegate for Germany, and others, expressed disappointment with the
output of the standardisation work in IIW at the second General Assembly in San Francisco
in 1997.
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Krause was a member of the highly influential CEN Technical Committee 121
Welding and Allied Processes
(CEN/TC 121) and also a prominent member of IIW’s
Commission III
Resistance Welding and Related Processes
(C-III). Hicks, naturally, was
Rute Ferraz