At the recent World Metrology Day event hosted by the Measurement Standards Laboratory in Wellington, the New Zealand MSA Branch awarded the 2026 Emerging Metrologist Award to Jasher Simmons from Dalton Electrical Ltd.
The nomination for Jasher impressed the judging panel in that he has achieved so much in such a short amount of time. With no tertiary or formal metrology training, his curiosity and determination was recognised by his employer who supported him to set up from scratch an instrumentation and calibration lab. Jasher attributes his can-do ability to having a home-schooled rural background. Being just 15 when entering the workforce as an audio workshop technician, by 17, he was an electrical apprentice who was managing industrial breakdowns. Learning early how things work, finding the root cause of a failure and identifying issues and fixing them was his early employment journey – at this stage the concept of metrology was still a mystery.
With the support of the Dalton Leadership, he set about the very steep learning curve that has now led to this award. Within 5 years, Jasher has created written technical procedures and uncertainty budgets without any prior knowledge of what these were, his lab has gained ISO 17025 accreditation, employed staff and is now the Dalton Authorised Rep and KTP.
Through this award the NZ Branch of the MSA have heard many similar stories from third tier laboratories. Technicians who start with little or no formal training but have the backing from their employers to develop skills and support their organisations growth. There is a hotbed of new metrology talent out there, and we hope in the future to see many more nominations from this industrial sector.
A worthy mention also goes to the Emerging Metrologist Award Runner up, Hoia Lincoln from Iplex Pipelines NZ.
MSA congratulates you both.
MSA Secretary, Cynthia Lendrum presenting Jasher Simmons the NZ 2026 Emerging Metrologist Award
