The Bureau of Standards was established in 1901 by a bill proposed by Congressman James H. Southard. The agency changed its name to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988.
NIST operates facilities in Gaithersburg Maryland and Boulder Colorado dedicated by President Eisenhower in 1954. A laboratory site was constructed in Washington DC using instruments acquired from European national physical laboratories.
Shyam Sunder directed the World Trade Center Collapse Investigation starting in 2002 when Congress mandated the study. The final report on WTC Towers released in October 2005 included thirty recommendations for improving building safety.
NIST published the Cybersecurity Framework in February 2014 as voluntary guidance for organizations managing risk. Version 1.1 arrived in April 2018 after amendments following Executive Order 13800 making it mandatory for federal agencies.
About 2,900 scientists and engineers work at NIST alongside 1,800 associate researchers from American companies and foreign countries. The agency provides practical guidance to facility owners contractors architects and emergency responders for future disasters.