This presentation will illustrate thirty years of the Geosynthetic Accreditation Institute’s Laboratory Accreditation Program (GAI-LAP). In December of 1994, GAI set out on a mission to accredit geosynthetic test laboratories. Accreditation is defined as the formal recognition that a testing laboratory is competent to carry out specific tests which are individually accredited. This program is a test-by-test accreditation program which is based on site audits and annual proficiency tests. The Geosynthetic Accreditation Institute-Laboratory Accreditation Program (GAI-LAP) was initiated following numerous requests to accredit the operations of testing laboratories within the geosynthetic community. The program is intended to ensure that the specific laboratory is capable of properly rendering the tests that they contract to perform. The essence of the program is to accredit geosynthetic testing laboratories for performing consensus standardized test methods insofar as equipment, documentation and testing protocol is concerned. It is important to note that, this program is not meant to certify individual test results. The program to be described was first requested by state and regional Environmental Protection Agency regulators, during a series of courses taught nationally in 1988 (on liner systems) and again in 1990 (on cover systems). Subsequently, a survey of GSI member organizations listed the lack of geosynthetic laboratory accreditation as a severe shortcoming of the industry. The GAI framed the accreditation programs around the following three international known standards; ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems-Requirements, ISO 17025 General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories and ISO 17011 Conformity Assessment – General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies. Although the GAI-LAP models itself after these standards it does not profess to be affiliated with either ISO or their standards. Rather the program is a hybrid one using the above as models but tailored to the immediate needs of the geosynthetic testing community.