As you know, due to the 2012 Las Vegas spending scandal, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed government agencies to reduce travel expenses starting in 2013. This memo has caused you, as a government employee, to not receive funding to attend important technical conferences like the IEST Annual Technical Meeting, ESTECH, and the IEST Fall Conference.

To help you receive approval...

IEST conferences and training events are in compliance with government employee conference attendance OMB requirements and 5 CFR 410.404.

With the OMB memorandum update in November 2013, the DoD implemented a tiered approval structure to help with approvals. IEST conferences fall under delegated tier three approval authorities since the conferences are less than $20,000 in total cost.

Justification Letter Templates

Download the ESTECH 2019 Justification Letter Template to send to your supervisor.

Download the Fall Conference 2018 Justification Letter Template to send to your supervisor.

How are IEST conferences OMB compliant?


  1. The IEST Mission is to globally expand and communicate the knowledge of contamination control, nanotechnology facilities, and test and reliability. This is accomplished through the development of Recommended Practices and Standards by a community dedicated to professional collaboration, training, and education.

    This makes IEST compliant with the following statement in the new memo from the OMB in May 2013 to all government agencies:

    “Given the unique travel and conference needs of each agency, there are circumstances in which physical collocation is necessary to complete the mission. These circumstances may include, but are not limited to, collaborations in the scientific community, unique training events for the law enforcement community, or the need to perform formal inspections as part of an agency’s oversight and investigatory responsibilities.”
  2. At IEST conferences, industry professionals gather at Working Group meetings to update and develop IEST Recommended Practices. These Recommended Practices are peer-reviewed standardized procedures for your industry. IEST has sponsored revision efforts of Federal Standards such as FED-STD-209, MIL-STD-781, MIL-STD-810, and MIL-STD-1246 (now IEST-STD-1246D). The IEST Standards and Practices program administers WG-DTE043: MIL-STD-810G, the Working Group that provides expert support to this constantly evolving standard.

    This makes IEST compliant with the following statement in the new memo from the OMB in May 2013 to all government agencies:

    “In addition, bringing together Federal employees at a single location—such as for program reviews or technical evaluations, presentation of scientific findings, oversight boards or advisory group meetings, international engagements, and standards-setting committees—may be the most efficient and cost-effective means for reviewing Government-sponsored efforts, issues, or challenges. Several agencies rely on meetings with industry and academic colleagues to drive innovation and ensure continued advancement in related fields.”

  3. The IEST annual technical meeting, ESTECH, allows professional the opportunity to present case studies and recent findings to their industry during technical sessions.

    This makes IEST compliant with the following statement in the new memo from the OMB in May 2013 to all government agencies:

    “In addition, bringing together Federal employees at a single location—such as for program reviews or technical evaluations, presentation of scientific findings, oversight boards or advisory group meetings, international engagements, and standards-setting committees—may be the most efficient and cost-effective means for reviewing Government-sponsored efforts, issues, or challenges. Several agencies rely on meetings with industry and academic colleagues to drive innovation and ensure continued advancement in related fields.”



* Approval is not guaranteed with this information, Justification Letter Template, and Estimate Conference Costs. IEST is not held responsible if the approval is denied.