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By JP Ervin
Jul 01, 2024
“Every day, you’re more successful than you were the day before.”
Andy Kireta says this is one of the lessons he learned from training as a long-distance runner. But it works just as well as a summary of his personality. Kireta has always pushed himself to take the next step, whether working on a farm as a teenager, cleaning his fraternity house in college, or training for ultra-marathons.
After becoming ASTM International’s president on May 1, Kireta is bringing his lunch-pail ethos to the organization. “It’s how I approach most things that I do,” he says. “I seek it out in other people. And teams I create involve people that can take ownership of things. Everyone looks at me as being the president and the leader of the organization, but I don’t expect anyone to do what I wouldn’t do. I value work ethic, where you dig in and figure it out, not just ask what everyone else has to do to solve a problem.”
I spoke to Kireta a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, and he made it clear that he’s already digging in. During our conversation, I asked him about the significance of his move to ASTM, how his background prepared him to take the helm, and what he hopes to accomplish during his tenure. Kireta told me how he became passionate about the organization and why he’s excited to face a new set of challenges. And yes, we also talked about how he caught the ultra-marathoning bug – and what we all could learn from the runner’s mentality.
Kireta’s work ethic was instilled at an early age, a function of growing up in a working-class family that put a premium on self-reliance. “My mindset came from my father and grandfathers, before I even started working,” he explains. “I didn’t come from a family of great means, so I was taught to be self-sufficient and to use tools. I began working on a farm when I was 14 years old. If something needed to be fixed, we fixed it. This was New Hampshire, and I was out in the middle of the woods, cutting firewood in winter. If the log splitter broke, I had to figure out how to fix it. The idea was always that if there’s work to be done, that comes before play.”
While in high school, Kireta took a job in construction. He learned framing, roofing, siding, and other skills while building townhomes and condos. Kireta initially considered studying to be an architect, but his do-it-yourself mentality ultimately attracted him to mechanical engineering. “I was fascinated with how things work and how they are designed,” he says. “I’ve applied that thinking throughout my career.”
After enrolling at Purdue University, Kireta says he took some time to get his footing, as he found the heavy emphasis on theory to be at odds with his hands-on mentality. But he says he fought through to his junior year, finally finding himself able to take theoretical ideas and apply them to real-world problems.
A proud Purdue “Boilermaker,” Kireta attributes much of his success to the University, which started as an agriculture and technical school and still honors its roots by pushing students to think about the practical implications of what they learn. He also recalls the value of managing his fraternity building. Kireta had a chance to test his commitment to the “don’t expect anyone to do what I wouldn’t do” mentality, regularly cleaning up after a messy group of college students. In what also could make for a fitting mantra, Kireta recalls, “Some days you had the gavel, and some days you had the mop.”
Andy Kireta joined ASTM International from the Copper Development Association (CDA). He previously served as ASTM's 2020 Board Chair.After graduating, Kireta had several opportunities to do on-site plant engineering. However, he was most intrigued by an offer to work for a consulting firm in the nuclear engineering space, a role that would allow him to move from site to site and work on different projects. He says he got his desired practical experience in spades, routinely facing problems that defied textbook solutions.
“I would be going out into a plant where there’s a great concern for safety, but shutting down for a day might be immensely costly,” Kireta says. “I had enough experience to realize that on the drawing, the pipe looks like a line. But I knew that in reality, it’s 12 inches in diameter and if I put it on this wall, they can’t weld it. There was a lot of value placed on being able to think on your feet and think quickly. We came up with some fairly crazy solutions after working 24 hours a day, three or four days in a row, when I realized if I’m going to get to bed, I better figure out how to solve this problem. I found that I thrived in that environment.”
Early during his time in the nuclear industry, Kireta also found himself working more and more with standards from organizations such as ASTM. While on the job, Kireta’s practical mind was especially engaged by the problems of figuring out which standards to apply in a given situation. Going out into the field might mean a visit to a plant that was built decades earlier, meaning he would need to understand historical codes and standards that were in use at the time.
Kireta next made the move to the Copper Development Association (CDA), taking a position representing the U.S. copper industry in 14 states in the Midwest. He looks back on joining the organization as a major growth opportunity, applying skills he had already built while forcing him to take the reins and create opportunities for himself.
“When I joined the CDA, it gave me the opportunity to use a lot of the skills I learned early on,” he says. “I was designing piping systems for nuclear plants, and then I started talking to engineering firms about why they should choose copper, how they should properly design their systems, teaching installers the right way to do it to avoid failures, and troubleshooting failures that had been installed. The job took all of those things together and threw me out there in the marketplace where I had to survive pretty much on my own.” Kireta stepped to the challenge, rising to the role of president and CEO over his 31 years working for the organization.
Early in his CDA days, Kireta got involved with ASTM when his organization saw a need to expand pressure ratings for copper used in piping systems. After joining the committee on copper and copper alloys (B05), Kireta decided to throw himself into the process and learn how ASTM operates. “I wasn’t just going to sit in a meeting, so I got on a task group, went on to lead a task group, and worked to make changes,” he says.
Kireta’s goal wasn’t initially to climb the ranks of ASTM. As a leading trade organization in the copper industry, CDA preferred to play a support role. His next steps still led to key contributions to the organization, and they also turned out to be a perfect fit for his personality.
“I took leadership positions that most people don’t want to do,” he says. “The membership secretary role opened, and I agreed to do it. It was really a service position. You are helping the committee but not taking control of the work or unduly influencing it. The other role I really enjoyed was serving as the chair of the awards committee. It’s often overlooked, but it was a great opportunity to reflect on the fact that we would not be the organization we are without the volunteer work of members. Often, a small percentage of members are doing the work for their committees, writing new standards, finding new opportunities, and mentoring other people. As the awards chair, I got to recognize those people.”
Over the following decades, Kireta would deepen his involvement in ASTM, culminating in assuming the board chair position in 2020. He was looking forward to participating in the time-honored tradition of traveling to committee weeks and meeting with executive committees. But three months into his term, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world – leading to a chair year that was anything but typical.
“I actually got a lot out of that year because I was watching the organization and providing guidance about dealing with big issues,” he reflects. “How do we lead an organization with a culture built around bringing staff into one office and getting members together to do the work? Closing the doors and giving up wasn’t an option. It was a challenge that had to be dealt with urgently. Serving as chair gave me an opportunity to see how strong the senior staff was, to get everyone on the same page, and work to make something happen quickly. I was proud to be part of it. Our board chair picture from that year is basically a screenshot of a Teams meeting.”
Kireta’s ASTM membership taught him to weather big challenges even as it deepened his passion for the organization and instilled a strong sense of how to keep striving for excellence. When the president’s role opened up, he leapt at it. “It was a special thing to see how engaged, successful, loyal, and dedicated the staff and membership are. That’s one of the main reasons that, when I was looking at the president position, I said to myself, ‘This is a place I would like to be.’”
Andy Kireta is a dedicated ultra-marathon runner. He applies many lessons he learned while running to his career and approach as a leader.Talking to Kireta just 30 days into his presidency, he’s already settling in – and he’s still pushing himself to reach the next level. A key component of his vision involves staying true to the organization’s founding aims while making sure to prepare for the future. “ASTM has to make sure that it has a business model in place and a plan so we can support our core mission. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the mission of the organization is 100% correct. But over time with any organization, people come to have a different interpretation of what that is. Every now and then, it’s worth going back and asking, ‘What does that mean in today’s context?’”
Today, Kireta says asking that question is immensely important. But he notes that ASTM doesn’t face “existential threats,” just challenges that the organization is ready to handle. Kireta is still the same person who gravitated toward the problem-solving aspects of engineering, and he says he’s looking forward to the task. “One of the things that intrigued me is that I won’t just be coming in and shepherding the organization in the exact same way it’s operated for the last 20 years,” he says. “With the quality of the members and the enthusiasm of the staff, ASTM is poised to make changes. That’s what makes it exciting and worthwhile to be here.”
Anyone who has spoken to Kireta on a Teams call has probably seen his wall, which is covered in medals commemorating his experiences as a long-distance runner. Given his accomplishments and his passion, one might assume he was a cross-country star in high school.
But Kireta says he didn’t start running until he was 36. And it wasn’t a skill that came overnight. In fact, he started simply, going for walks with his wife, Missy. Then he tried running around the small indoor track in his community center. The next step was training with a friend who was planning to run a half-marathon. As he sat a half-mile from the finish line in the crowd, waiting for her to finish the race, Kireta had a realization: “I saw different types of people, different body types, different approaches. If they are getting that much joy out of coming to the finish line, maybe I should try this.”
The next step, as they say, was history. Kireta kept pushing himself, everyday finding more success than the day before. And while a runner’s mindset has become a core part of his identity, he says it isn’t as simple as the cliché of going on a run to come up with easy answers.
“I used to think that one of the things I got from running was solving problems,” Kireta says. “And I do. No one can call me, so I have time to think. But what I found is it wasn’t actually me solving problems. I was thinking about a problem while running and separating the emotion from the problem itself. I figured out how I was thinking about a problem, how I was feeling about a problem. When I got back and started having to deal with that problem, then I could be a little more clearheaded and objective.”
JP Ervin is content editor for Standardization News.
July / August 2024
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