Technical and Special Committee Membership

After becoming a member of the association, many individuals join AWPA's Technical and Special Committees.  A member may apply for membership on a Special committee at any time, but for Technical Committee membership, he or she may not apply until 365 calendar days after being accepted for Association membership or after attending a full meeting of the committee to which application is being made.

Note that association membership is not a requirement for Technical or Special Committee membership, but reasonable fees must be charged by AWPA to offset the cost of committee activities.  In most cases, these committee activity fees are similar to those charged for association membership, so all of our committee members are currently association members.

Members are welcome to join a committee Task Group at any time. A considerable amount of work is done in these groups prior to recommendations being brought to Committee. Please send us an email at email@awpa.com to join any listed Task Group. Non-AWPA members are also welcome to join Task Groups pursuent to the same guidelines noted for Committee membership in the above paragraph.

Apply for membership on a Technical or Special Committee

You may apply to become a member of a Special Committee at any time after becoming an Association Member.  Technical Committee applications may be submitted after a person has been an AWPA member in good standing for at least 365 calendar days, or after they have attended one full meeting of the committee to which they are applying for.

Click here to download a Technical/Special Committee Membership Application

The application must be completed and sent to AWPA by mail, fax, or email.  Please note that Technical and Special Committee membership applications are usually considered at each Executive Committee meeting, and should be received at least 30 days prior to the meeting to be considered.  Special Committee applications may be submitted at any time. Applicants will be notified of their status after Executive Committee action and the committee membership database has been updated.  This process may take up to six months before you are notified of the status of your application.  Only one person from any entity may serve on a single Technical Committee.  Applications which would cause there to be two persons from a single organization to become members of a Technical Committee will be rejected.  Consult Sections 3 and 4 of the AWPA Technical Committee Regulations for more information.

Please note that applicants are not required to become an association member to join a Technical or Special Committee.  However, such non-member applicants should be aware that reasonable committee activity fees may be charged to cover the costs of standards development.  Please contact AWPA to determine the current committee activity fee amounts.

AWPA standards and programs are developed through its committees as follows:

Protectant/Preservative Technical Committees:

P-1 General Administrative. Comprised of the officers of all Protectant Committees, it is responsible for coordination of activities between all Protectant Committees.  Membership is limited to and automatically conferred upon the officers of all other "P" Committees.

P-3 Oilborne and Creosote-based Preservative Systems. Jurisdiction over all preservatives which use a hydrocarbon solvent as a carrier, or organic/organometallic preservatives which do not use carrier systems.

P-4 Waterborne Preservative Systems. Jurisdiction over all preservatives and fire retardants which use water or aqueous solutions as a carrier, or inorganic preservatives which do not use carrier systems.

P-5 Methods for Chemical Analysis of Preservatives. Jurisdiction over all analytical method procedures (AWPA “A” Standards).

P-6 Methods for Evaluation of Wood Preservatives. Jurisdiction over all evaluation method procedures (AWPA “E” Standards).

P-9 Non-Biocidal Wood Protection. Jurisdiction over all means of protecting wood which do not use preservative biocides.

Treatments Technical Committees:

T-1 General Administrative.  Comprised of the officers of all Treatments Committees, it is responsible for coordination of activities between all Treatments Committees.  Membership is limited to and automatically conferred upon the officers of all other "T" committees. 

T-2 Lumber and Timbers.  Jurisdiction over standards or portions thereof pertaining to most sawn products.

T-3 Piles and Ties.  Jurisdiction over standards or portions thereof pertaining to roundwood foundation, building, or marine piles, and sawn railroad crossties and switchties.

T-4 Poles and Posts.  Jurisdiction over standards or portions thereof pertaining to roundwood or glued-laminated utility poles or building poles, or round, half-round, and quarter-round posts.

T-7 Quality Control and Inspection.  Jurisdiction over standards pertaining to the inspection of treated wood products or quality control procedures.

T-8 Composites and Manufactured Products.  Jurisdiction over standards or portions thereof pertaining to composite wood products.

Special Committees:

S-2 Wood Protection Research Committee.  Focuses on research issues involving wood protection.

S-3 Treated Wood Use, Handling and Disposal/Recycle Committee.  Responsible for suggesting amendments to appropriate Standards.

S-8 Plant Operations Committee.  Focuses on treating plant operations and environmental regulations.