It is hard to describe what it was like being President from 1980 to 1982. Having been one of the founding members and the first Vice-President (before there was a President-elect) allowed me to be intimately involved in the birth pains and early childhood development issues. In those days there were relatively few dispensing audiologists, so our membership was very low, maybe 40-50. However, there was much interest about ADA among audiologists. This was demonstrated during the 1978 ASHA convention in CA. We rented a meeting room in a nearby hotel and advertised (quietly) the first ever meeting of ADA. We expected and planned for 50 people. Over 200 showed up, and we were off and running. This was also a hectic time. It seemed that we were constantly putting out brush fires with ASHA, NHAS, AAOO, etc. At that time, those professional relationships were not good.

An amusing (now) anecdote: Our first national conference was in 1979 in Cape Cod and was a complete success. The next year we met at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, and it was a disaster. The attendance was so low that we actually had more exhibitors than attendees. We got snowed on during an outing to a show in Reno. Nothing seemed to go right.

I'd say that the most important issue during my tenure was our relationship with the traditional hearing aid dispensers and with NHAS. Needless to say they were not pleased that ADA had come into existence.

Today's professional issues do not concern survival and relationships with other professional organizations, at least in terms of the way they were 16 years ago. Today, audiologists comprise a significant percentage, if not a majority, of hearing aid dispensers.

Organizations like NHAS (now IHAS) have finally actively welcomed and recruited audiologists. ASHA no longer actively opposes audiologists dispensing. The climate is such that we can focus on professional growth, industry growth, and better serving the public, rather than on our very survival and having to constantly justify ourselves, even to our professional peer!