ISO14 -- Setting the Standard in Environmental Management

The Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB) was established in 1989 by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Its original mission was to provide accreditation services for ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems (QMS) registrars. The new organization was structured as an independent legal entity. RAB is governed and operated independently from ASQ.

When RAB was first created, it immediately sought to strengthen the U.S. system for registrar accreditation by pursuing a formal relationship with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 1991, ANSI and RAB joined forces to establish the American National Accreditation Program for Registrars of Quality Systems.

The next year RAB introduced QMS course provider accreditation and auditor certification programs that were separate from the joint program with ANSI. Then in 1996, with the release of new ISO 14000 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) standards, the ANSI-RAB National Accreditation Program (NAP) was formed replacing the original joint program.

RAB, headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, is a not-for-profit organization that is financially self-supported. Members of the board of directors represent both quality and environmental stakeholders and include technical experts, business executives, industry representatives, and employees of registrar organizations.

RAB policy is established by the RAB board of directors and, for those programs operated by ANSI, by ANSI, by a Joint Oversight Board populated equally by representatives of each organization. RAB exists to serve the conformity assessment needs of business and industry, registrars, course providers and individual auditors.

Courtesy of RAB