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This message has been cross posted to the following eGroups: Statistics and the Environment Section and Statistical Consulting Section .
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By way of background, there is a certificate on the wall of my office that indicates that I have been a member of ASA for over 45 years. The vast majority of those years has been as a statistician/consultant to heavy industry. I have been in independent practice for the last 20 years.

For most of those 45 years, I have dealt with issue regarding the environment. These are not issues for which one seeks grants, but ones associated with estimation of the extent of site contamination and volume of soil requiring remediation, negotiating waste water discharge limitations, nuclear site decommissioning and providing statistical support to my chemist colleagues performing audits of certified environmental laboratories.

That certificate also indicates that I am of sufficient age to remember the ASA Presidential addresses of Don Marquardt (1986), Bob Hogg (1988) and Stu Hunter (1993). A common theme of those addresses was the perceived value of the statistical profession, or perhaps lack there of. I submit that we are still not highly valued outside of the bio-pharm industry, academe and the government.

There are many, if not most, environmental engineers; chemists; economists; and if firm billings are down, technicians; who believe that they are perfectly capable of doing statistical analysis given the readily available software. As a profession we have not done the missionary work required to generate a lot of converts. But that is a story for another time.

So, why did I seek accreditation? When first proposed (sometime ago) I was resistant. Steve Feinberg and I have discussed the efficacy of accreditation a couple of times. The real answer is quite simple and is illustrated by an example (I can come up with many).

I do a lot of litigation support work. Recently, the other side produced a PhD chemist who had done a principal component analysis using readily available and credible software. Obviously, his conclusions were made in ignorance of the statistical assumptions he was making. Having been accredited as a Professional Statistician by the ASA levels the playing field for a guy who only has an MS from Iowa State.

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Douglas Splitstone
Principal
Splitstone & Associates
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Now for my 2c.

Some people find the ASA accreditation useful, others don't.  Thus, it is a personal choice.

Three types of organizations hand out accreditations for different reasons:

1.  The government. This has two reasons.  The first is to demonstrate that the person is qualified to do the work for which he is licensed.  The second is to keep the supply of the first down to raise their wages.

2.  Academia and private sector (think of SAS and the Project Management Institute).  This demonstrates that the person has completed a course of study.  Whether any of that study was practical or useful is highly variable.  These credentials also create income for the issuers, which has led to abuses.

3.  Professional organizations like the ASA.  This varies by organization.  The ASA credential demonstrates both theoretical and practical knowledge of statistics.  The risks are twofold: devaluing the credential by making it too easy to obtain and restraining trade by making it too difficult.

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Charles Coleman
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