Don’t Give Her an Inch--She Wants a Meter : Changes: Valerie Antoine of the U.S. Metric Assn. hopes conversion from the inch-pound system will hit like 907 kilograms of bricks.

Tucked away in a nondescript Northridge neighborhood, Valerie Antoine sits in her back bedroom, plotting ways to change the federal government’s method of conducting business. Her tools for this ambitious undertaking are simple--thermometers, measuring sticks and spoons, stacks of files, recipe cards, wooden blocks, lapel pins and a fistful of bumper stickers.

Antoine, 75, believes the materials are enough to spark what she predicts will be a countrywide revolution, starting Sept. 30, 1992. On that date, Congress has mandated that all federal agencies convert from an inch-pound system of weights and measures to the metric system.

Antoine, who is the executive director of the U.S. Metric Assn. (USMA), hopes the government’s switch will eventually trickle down to metric conversions of household measuring spoons and elementary school rulers.

The prospect of widespread metric usage in the United States has kept Antoine on the front lines of her crusade for 30 years. The USMA, a grass-roots organization formed in 1916 at Columbia University in New York, now operates out of two spare rooms in Antoine’s four-bedroom home. The nonprofit group has 2,000 members internationally, and promotes metric conversion by disseminating materials to schools, businesses and governments.

“There’s nobody like her,” said Lorelle Young, who became USMA president in 1985. “She’s indispensable and very highly respected.”

After putting in a 50-hour week as manager of support services at Woodland Hills-based Litton Guidance & Control Systems, Antoine logs another 40 hours each week for the USMA and the metric revolution.

“I enjoy both my jobs,” said Antoine, who has donated her home as USMA headquarters since 1976. “I’m keeping abreast of everything that’s happened by still working in industry. I wouldn’t be nearly as much use to businesses if I didn’t know what type of fasteners, for instance, are available in metric sizes.”

Antoine became intrigued with the subject after her first formal introduction to the metric system at Santa Monica City College in 1960.

“I went down to the central library to get more material and found only three or four books on the metric system, and they were vintage 1924 and 1928,” she said. “I was impressed with how easy metric was and could see how backward our nation had been in holding onto inch-pound. The world was shrinking, and I felt something should be done to keep us in step.”

Besides the United States, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Liberia are the only countries that retain the inch-pound system today. The prospect of the European Community’s economic unification, coming in 1992, hastened the advent of U.S. government metrication because the inch-pound system was seen as a hard sell in large overseas metric markets.

About 150 requests from educators pour into Antoine’s house each month, and about two to five businesses phone each day requesting information. She is now assembling a list of U.S. businesses that produce metric products, such as tools, hardware and parts. It is a compilation that the government will use to help wean its agencies from the inch-pound system.

Interest in the metric system last surfaced when the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 asked Americans to voluntarily switch to metric, a system based on multiples of 10. Using the meter for length and the kilogram for mass, the international system is seen as more rational than the jumble of formulas used in the inch-pound system. For example, one meter equals 39.37 inches; one kilogram equals 2.2 pounds.

The movement stalled, Antoine said, after many balked at the prospect of learning a new language for weights and measurements. The final blow came with Reagan-era budget cuts in the early 1980s.

Realizing that change would naturally filter down from the top, Congress amended the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, mandating that the nation’s largest consumer and employer--the U.S. government--make all its purchases in metric units beginning in 1992.

There has been a jump in requests for information from USMA since 1988, Antoine said, adding that a similar burst of interest occurred after 1975.

“Now we’ve got some real teeth,” said Antoine, smoothing back her silver-white hair and brightening at the idea of a nation gone metric.

Antoine, who uses some of her own funds for mailings and travel expenses, previously served as vice president and president of USMA before becoming executive director in 1985. All USMA board members volunteer their time for the group, which charges annual dues of $20 for individuals and $100 for companies.

Besides her other activities, Antoine presents hands-on metric workshops to schools and businesses, writes articles for trade publications, puts out USMA’s newsletter every other month and helps organize a metric conference in Washington each October. The conference is held jointly with the Washington-based American National Metric Council, begun in 1973 to assist industry in metrication.

G. T. Underwood, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce office of metric programs, said he routinely consults with Antoine to determine the public’s pulse on metrication.

He said he expects most American businesses will turn metric by the turn of the century. Trickle-down metrication of schools and such public services as weather reports and highway signs will “occur gradually and painlessly,” he said. “There’s no urgency. This time the focus is on industry, not social change.”

Two small rooms in Antoine’s house are packed floor to ceiling with ambitious and eclectic files on metric matters. Crammed into 15 towering file cabinets are newspaper clippings, pamphlets, sets of conversion files from foreign countries and even a file on metric humor: “It hit me like 907 kilograms of bricks,” reads one clipping. “He beat him within 2.54 centimeters of his life,” reads another.

“But old sayings never change,” Antoine said. “We still talk about throwing down the gauntlet, but of course we never refer to a glove as a gauntlet anymore.”

On one wall is an inventory list, which includes such subjects as ammunition, hardware, rubber hose, songs and zoning. A computer hums in the corner, casting a blue light over the collection.

“Many people don’t know they’re already using metric,” Antoine said. “Look around you. There’s 35-millimeter film, spark plugs, batteries, wine and soft drinks in liter bottles, snow skis, light bulbs, pharmaceuticals--all measured in metric. And the entire auto industry switched to metric about 10 years ago.”

Fred Weiner, a consultant for the Society of Automotive Engineers, often consults with Antoine when guiding the automotive industry in metrication.

“When complicated conversions need to be calculated, the information I get from the USMA is invaluable,” said Weiner, who lives in Canoga Park. “They have all the latest information as culled from actual experiences from such countries as Canada, England and Australia--countries that have already converted.”

Climbing over several crates, Antoine pulled out a stack of bound files containing a complete guide to Australia’s move to metric, begun in 1970. Thumbing through thick books labeled “Rail Transport,” “Wood,” and “Tobacco Products,” Antoine said the U.S. General Services Administration recently phoned to request a similar set of material from Canada’s switch to metric, which occurred in 1971.

“I sent them about four kilograms of paper,” said Antoine, refusing a request to convert the amount to pounds. “If someone asks me to compare feet to meters or whatever, I just tell them I don’t know. Otherwise, you’re always converting back and forth, and you never learn what metric really is. You just have to experience it.”

In other corners of the room, stacks of film, videotapes and posters from various countries’ metric-conversion programs await distribution. “I pick up anything I can that has to do with metric,” Antoine said, bundling up some metric rulers. “It always comes in handy. Someone eventually needs it.”

During the lean years, when interest in metrication flagged, Antoine occasionally sent off materials to college students battling out metric’s pros and cons in college term papers. USMA also helped coordinate South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand’s switch to metric, sending off examples of conversion campaigns and other material.

“After ‘75, when we were sure the country would go metric, it was a real letdown when it petered out,” said Antoine, unfurling a General Motors campaign poster that exhorted workers to “Learn a New Language!”

“We had some false starts, but now I’m just feeling elated.”