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IN DEPTH: CONSTRUCTION & DESIGN
Trade provides impetus for metric switchGREATER METROPLEX -- International trade imperatives are giving impetus to conversion to metrics from English measurements, but architects and engineers continue to work with both systems. U.S. measurement isolation might end by 2010 as a European Union directive mandates that all packages imported into the E.U. have metric-only labeling. "They want everything to be one customary system of measurement so these packages can travel freely throughout the E.U.," said Ken Butcher, the U.S. Commerce Department's point man on metrication. Every label redesign is an added expense for manufacturers, but the E.U. represented 21.8% of U.S. exports in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. "The Department of Commerce estimates that about 20,000 jobs are created for every $1 billion worth of exports, and you can't export inch/pound products to places where they use metric," said Lorelle Young, president of the nonprofit U.S. Metric Association. For U.S. engineers and architects, the imperial, or standard, measurement system has equal footing with metrics. "We use both standard and metric. We're probably 50/50 right now," said Timothy Fleming, vice president and chief operating officer of Mark Thomas & Co., a Sacramento-based engineering company. Hoping to move the marketplace with the government's multibillion-dollar buying power, the 1988 Metric Usage Act mandated that all federal highway and building projects had to use metric units. "We had a construction education council that was composed of public and private people, that represented most of the federal agencies that did substantial construction," said William Brenner, vice president of The National Institute of Building Science. "We had manufacturers, architects, engineers. Probably about half were federal personnel like the Federal Highway Administration, General Services Administration, Army, Navy, Bureau of Prisons, NASA, many agencies that do a lot of construction." Back then, Young said, the states' departments of transportation were going metric and the American Association of State and Highway Officials was excited about it. States talked with each other to share information and save as much time and trouble in the planning as they could. But some contractors hired by a state for a highway project balked at going metric and put pressure on state officials to kill the requirement, Young said. That adversely affected that state's department of transportation's ability to comply. "That's what happened," Young said. "There's no big move to go backwards, just some powerful companies living in the dark ages who don't want to switch." About 85% of money from the Federal Highway Administration goes to states for highway construction. A change in the law in 1998 made using metrics on highway projects a state's option. Without the federal stick, of the more than 40 states that were metric-certified almost all reverted back to imperial. Statutes will need to play a role in metric packaging, experts say. "Three stores within about 20 miles of my house import small amounts of products from Europe that are only available in metric," Butcher said. "In some states, under federal law, it's illegal to sell those." Butcher said he's working to amend the federal Fair Packaging Labeling Act, which was amended in 1992 to require both metric and inch/pound units on most product packaging. Amending the act to permit metric-only labeling on packages will allow manufacturers to sell those both in retail stores here and abroad ahead of the E.U.'s Jan. 1, 2010, deadline. While Americans aren't pumping gas by the liter, they are buying their liquor and soft drinks in metric units. Food may be sold by the ounce, but all the nutritional information is in metric units. "Things have really changed with the metric system in the last 10 years," Butcher said. "If you listened to the president speak before the United Nations or Colin Powell speak to Congress they were talking about liters of anthrax. People are using the metric system so much more." The events of 9/11 may have given the metric system another little push, with subsequent international dissemination of data taking place in metric units, he said. "70% of major corporations use it in some aspect of their operation, maybe 30% of small businesses do," Young said. "They're pulled into it by export needs or by being the supplier of a larger company and needing to meet the specification for parts." For the faithful, metrication can't come soon enough. For the skeptical, the switch seems a long-running joke. "We can't stay in inches/pounds," Young said. "Not if we want to sell to the world, unless we want our economy to go completely in the toilet." "One of my professors asked me the other day what I did, and I told her and she laughed saying, 'I thought we were going to do that 30 years ago. You're still working on that?' " Butcher said. But Brenner can foresee only one way America will turn completely metric in a hurry. "The Martians are going to land next year and impose metric on everyone," he said. This article previously appeared in the Sacramento Business Journal, an affiliated publication. 
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