I confess: I'm not certified in any way by any international, national, or regional organization as a clean manufacturing professional. I haven't taken any two-year, six-month, or three-week courses in contamination control and cleanroom procedures.

I am a chemical engineer. I have about ten years experience in precision and critical cleaning, developing technology, and working with users. And I've attended IEST (http://www.iest.org) shows and courses.

The most important part of any education is learning how to think. The second most important part of education, for us in this industry, is familiarization with certain technical materials. At best, credentialing can speak to familiarization with certain technical materials; it has no ability to certify that a credentialed person can think.

There are several points on which all of us, I think, agree:

1. As the costs and consequences of contamination grow, so does the complexity of our industry/business/science/art.

2. Education and training must be part of any strategy for keeping quality up and costs down, if we are to remain competitive in the marketplace.

3. We don't want the guy from the muffler shop showing up to certify our cleanroom environments (as that familiar advertisement attests).

I hope we don't get to the point at which industry-wide educational requirements, standards, or credentials define who we are and what we are allowed to do.

As an employer, I want to hire people who have pertinent education, are aware of appropriate standards, but most of all, can think. I don't care how they learned what they know; I do care about what they know, and how they can put that knowledge to use for my company's benefit.

Here's the difference: to get my PE license, I had to take two eight-hour tests and be recommended by others who were willing to affirm that I had successful experience solving practical problems.

Sometimes education and experience aren't enough. Sometimes, to solve a contamination control problem, you have to "think like a particle" (or microbe or impurity or whatever).

Here's an example: A company wanted a consultant to help with a particle intrusion problem. Since their business was similar to disk drive manufacturing, they wanted to engage someone experienced with disk drives. So they hired a consultant with experience in that industry to solve the problem.

What happened? The consultant did what he'd done so many times before: he "thought like a disk drive"É and did exactly what he'd done so many times before.

The problem didn't get solved.

I maintain that the person hired should have not only been familiar with disk drive design and cleanroom procedures, but should also have been capable of "thinking like a particle." The latter can only come with experience, intuition, and sensitivity.

Critical cleaning is a young discipline. If some kind of qualification process is necessary for workers in this discipline, fine. But if we are in the formative stages of establishing that process, let's remember what we need long-term: "registered" professionals who are not only trained, but are able to use that training.

Credentialing is easy; learning to "think like a particle" is much more difficult.