The year was 1951. Harry
S. Truman was President of the United States. A 3 bedroom home cost
$9,000.00. A new Ford listed for $1,480.00; postage was $.03; and a
loaf of bread cost $.16. Joe DiMaggio retired from baseball; I
Love Lucy premiered; and peace talks began in Korea.
In Chicago, a group of machine
accountants got together and decided that the future was only beginning
for the TAB machines they were operating. They were members of a local
group called the Machine Accountants Association (MAA). The technology
was new; something few people understood and managing this new
technology was a skill that even fewer people possessed. The machine
accountants recognized the need to form a professional support group, a
national association, to address the growing issues of this new
technology. Thus on December 26, 1951, after a constitutional
convention was held in Chicago, the State of Illinois granted a charter
and the National Machine Accountants Association (NMAA) was founded.
Groups from Houston, Columbus,
Wabash Valley, the Twin Cities, Penn-Del, and 22 others were the first
to join NMAA. Robert L. Jenal, systems manager for Toni Company, was
elected the first International President at the 1952 First Annual
Convention in Minneapolis.
In 1960, the association
sponsored a meeting of educators and businessmen with the purpose of
establishing the Certificate in Data Processing (CDP) professional
examination program. The first CDP exam was held in 1962 in New York.
1962 was also the year that the association leaders recognized the
changing nature of information processing techniques brought about by
the introduction of the computer. Thus, the members decided in 1962 to
adopt a more progressive name, the Data Processing Management
Association (DPMA), to reflect the changing industry.
Always striving to promote the
continued education of the members, the leadership of DPMA created the
Registered Business Programmer (RBP) examination in 1970. Both the CDP
and the RBP exams were given annually under the rules established b y
the Certification Council, at test centers in colleges and universities
across North America. Eventually, DPMA decided to help establish the Institute for the Certification of Computer
Professionals (ICCP) to stimulate more widespread interest and
industry acceptance of the examinations. ICCP began administering the
CDP program in early 1974.
The association has always
acknowledged the contributions of prominent professionals within the
Information Technology field. Beginning in 1969 with the creation of
the annual Computer Sciences Man-of-the-Year Award for
outstanding contributions to the information processing industry, DPMA
has established a long-standing tradition of honoring IT professionals
from every aspect of the industry. This prestigious award was renamed
the Distinguished Information Sciences Award in 1980 and is
awarded every year at the Annual Meeting of the Members.
As the industry has evolved, so
has the association. Starting as the NMAA, evolving into the DPMA, and
then into our current evolution in 1996 of the ASSOCIATION of
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS (AITP), the association has kept
pace with the changing needs and interests of our members. AITP members
span every level of the IT industry from mainframe systems, to micro
systems, to PC based LAN and WAN systems, to virtual systems and the
internet. AITP has special niches created that cater to the special
interests of our members. Our members are found in every facet of
society as well. They're in colleges and universities; banking;
industry; retail; the armed forces; local, state and federal
governments; hospitals; etc.
To learn more about the history
of AITP, DPMA and NMAA search the archives of the Charles Babbage Institute Center
for the History of Information Processing. You may also contact the
ASSOCIATION of INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS headquarters for
more information at +1.800.224.9371.
