Celebrating More than 20 years of Service and Standards Leadership

An Interview with Dave Sterry, Director of Standards 

CLSI is wishing a warm and heartfelt send off to Dave Sterry, Director of Standards, as he heads into a new chapter in retirement from CLSI. Dave has worked for CLSI for over 20 years. During his tenure, he has seen the organization evolve and grow to instill proper laboratory procedure and enable proper medical care for patients across the globe.  

The development of consensus-based global standards is hard work, and Dave gave his all to help the committees and the organization. We sat down with Dave and spoke with him about his accomplishments in shaping the CLSI standards team, his vision for the organization in the future and, of course, what exciting things are next for him in retirement. 

 

Q: Tell us more about your role here at CLSI. 

A: I wear a couple of different hats. I am one of the directors for standards development. I have a couple program managers that report to me, but I still serve as a program manager working with the Document Development Committees and Expert Panels. 

I also serve as the committee manager for the ISO Technical Committee 212, which is for medical laboratories and IVD (in vitro diagnostic) devices or IVD medical devices.  

The work of the ISO Technical Committee is like the work done by CLSI. The documents the committee produces are used by medical laboratories worldwide. 

 

Q: What sort of pathway lead you to a career like this? 

A: I started out as a medical technologist, worked in various hospital laboratories for about a decade, and then moved to an area in southeastern PA. From there, I decided that I wanted to try something a little more stable. At that time, insurance companies started changing their reimbursement policies. Hospital laboratories were losing money. They were merging.  

I saw an ad for a role at CLSI in a magazine called “Advanced for Laboratory Professionals.” They were looking for somebody with a med tech background. I applied and started out as a project manager with a couple of documents and slowly took on more responsibility and different work. I moved up the ladder from project manager to staff liaison. We had various titles back in the day, but I eventually became a director, which has been my role for about 15 years. 

 

Q: What changed during your tenure at CLSI? 

A: So much has changed. When I first started working at CLSI, everything was done on paper, like developing documents. You would still get emails, but content was printed out, marked up, and stored in filing cabinets. All meetings were also in person.  We had a brick-and-mortar office building. We also had all our committee meetings right in the office. You wore a shirt and tie every day. You needed to look like you were business-ready.  

Once things became more digital, we stopped doing so much on paper, and we stopped having in-person meetings. We started doing group meetings four times a year. What we now have is the Committee Weeks. So, there has been lots of change in the 23 years that I’ve been part of CLSI. 

 

Q: What makes you most proud as you look back at your time at CLSI? 

A: Helping the volunteer subject matter experts achieve success in publishing their documents. Working in a hospital, you are saving patients' lives, and although the work we do in standards development doesn’t involve direct patient interaction, we do influence the care that patients receive. Seeing or hearing the congratulations that volunteers share amongst themselves when their document is published makes you feel proud that you're still “doing good” in the field of medicine. The work has made an impact and hopefully it's been such a great experience for the volunteers that they will continue to share their expertise and collaborate to assist with new standards development. That is the lifeblood of the organization, because if we did not have the volunteers, we could not do what we do.  

 

Q: What are some accomplishments you have made while working at CLSI? 

A: I think one accomplishment is helping to streamline the document development process. The process used to be much more complicated than it is right now. We used to have several voting stages, and now we're down to two. I think that has helped to speed up document publishing. There are still some obstacles to overcome, but I think helping to trim down the process to streamline it without compromising on the consensus protocols has been very effective.  

Another accomplishment has been building the reputation of the ISO Technical Committee. People on the committee have grown and have learned from my ability to respond to their questions. Even though ISO is not the major focus of my job, it's still an important facet. It takes some time and effort to balance that successfully. 

 

Q: Where do you see CLSI in 5 years from now? How would you expect it to grow or change? What would you like to see CLSI achieve or do? 

A: I would expect CLSI to continue to grow and expand. The field of medicine is constantly changing. There are always new standards and guidance that need to be developed as well as training and educational products. CLSI is looked to as the leading organization to fill this need. Maybe one day we’ll get there, and CLSI will be the single source for that information and guidance. 

 

Q: Do you have any words of advice for someone just starting out at CLSI? 

A: Don't be afraid to speak up. If you have any ideas about how to do things better, be brave and don't get discouraged. Keep making suggestions. Eventually you may come up with the idea that will change things and have real impact. 

Be kind and courteous to your co-workers. There was a sign hanging in one of the labs that I worked at when I was working as a med tech. I thought they were nice words to live by, “Keep your words soft and sweet when dealing with other people because you know never know when you have to eat them.”   

Make sure you listen carefully. Don't just hear the words, listen to what's being said.  

 

Q: What are you looking forward to in retirement? 

A: Recreation. For most of my working career, golf has been relegated to weekends. Now I can play anytime when the weather is nice. I'll probably do some more boating. The house that we bought a couple of years ago needs some work, so I'll spend a lot of time improving the house.  

Travel. I’ve done quite a bit of traveling with my role at CLSI and the ISO Technical Committee.  I've been to places I never thought I would go. However, when traveling for work, you don't really get to be a “tourist.”  I'd like to go back to some of those places and spend a week or two so I can really explore and enjoy the locations and get a better understanding of what I missed.  My wife and I also have our little bucket list of places that we want to go back to or visit for the first time. We want to go back to Belgium, France, and Japan. Neither one of us has been to Italy, so we’d really like to go there. There are places in the US we'd like to go see as well.  We can take our time and drive to wherever we want to in the country so that'll be fun. 

 

We’d like to thank Dave for his many years of hard work and dedication to CLSI and the standards team. We wish you the best in your retirement!