The URISA History Project

By Nancy Tosta, URISA President 1999-2000, Ross & Associates, Seattle, Washington

This year, URISA is celebrating its 40th birthday! The theme of URISA's 40th Annual Conference (October 26-30, 2002, in Chicago) focuses on where we've come from, and a specific track is planned that will look at what's been accomplished over the last 40 years.

As a component of the history project, URISA is attempting to capture much of the relevant URISA history and create a Web site that will help provide access to materials. I recently had an opportunity to examine some of URISA founder Edgar Horwood's files at the University of Washington archives. There are more than 60 boxes of papers, teachings, maps, and photos that hold a phenomenal wealth of insight and information. Surely Ed would have loved to have participated in our certification debates!

Your help in identifying historical materials, especially those that are available electronically; time lines; cool ideas for Web-enabling some of these materials; etc., would all be appreciated. The intent is to mount a page on the URISA site that will provide interactive access to some of our history to help provide perspectives for current practitioners.

In addition, we are preparing a PowerPoint presentation for the annual conference that draws on a variety of materials from Horwood's archives as well as conferences over the years. If you have photographs, perspectives, insights, videos, tapes, or other material you'd like to contribute to this presentation, we would very much appreciate having them.

Please send them directly to Nancy Tosta at Ross & Associates Environmental Consulting, Ltd., 1218 3rd Avenue, Suite 1207, Seattle, Washington 98101 (e-mail: nancy.tosta@ross-assoc.com, tel.: 206-447-1805), or to Wendy Francis, director of marketing, URISA, 1460 Renaissance Drive, Suite 305, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068 (e-mail: wfrancis@urisa.org., tel.: 847-824-6300, fax: 847-824-6363). We will do our utmost to ensure their safe return.