New Jersey

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF THE NEW JERSEY SECTION

 
In January of 1942, the Society for Measurement and Control (New Jersey) was formed in Northern New Jersey by the spontaneous banding together of a group of engineers, technicians, manufacturer's representatives, and scientists for the purpose of discussing matters of mutual interest in the field of measurement and control instrumentation, and thereby to advance the standing of this section of industrial technology.

In December 1944 in New York City, and April 1945 in Pittsburgh, PA, representatives of the Society for Measurement and Control (New Jersey) met with representatives from similar organizations in other states for the purpose of forming a national organization, in order to prosecute the general aims of the collective groups.

 At the April 1945 meeting, the national organization, named the Instrument Society of America, was formally organized.  The Society for Measurement and Control (New Jersey) a charter member of the Instrument Society of America, thus became the New Jersey Section of the Instrument Society of America.

Shortly thereafter, a Constitution and By-Laws were adopted for governing the Section's proceedings. Because of the growth of the Section, as well as numerous changes in the Constitution and By-Laws of the National ISA, extensive revisions became necessary in the Constitution of the New Jersey Section.  The revisions were accomplished by formal vote of the membership in January, 1960.  Most of those changes fell into three categories: (1) Where provisions in the National Constitution and By-Laws are directly applicable to the Sections, these provisions are not repeated in the Section Constitution, but are simply referred to.  Thus the Section document will not need revision every time the National makes a change, for example, in dues.  (2) The growth of the Section required changing the organization of the Executive Board and the elected permanent committee chairmen in order to carry on the business of the Section more efficiently.  The majority of the Executive Board members are still elected to office, thus insuring democratic control of the Section by the Section membership.  (3) The original procedure for amending the Constitution was too cumbersome for such a large membership.  The revised procedure facilities amendment while leaving control with the membership on a democratic basis. Further changes were made by formal vote of the membership in May of 1966. These changes were made to have the New Jersey Section Constitution agree with the National Constitution as regards membership.

In April of 1985, the Executive Committee decided that our Section Constitution was getting further and further out of line with the Society Constitution.  A Committee was formed to revise our Constitution and By-Laws to place them in line with the Society Constitution.  At that time, the Constitution Revision Committee recommended that our present Constitution and By-Laws be revised in its entirety, and that a new format following article numbers of the Society Constitution, along with most of the provisions and wording of the Society Constitution, be used and those items contained in the Section Constitution and By-Laws, be placed there.  A vote for this revised Constitution is scheduled for May 1987.

In October 2001, the Council of Society Delegates approved a tag line to the name ISA by adding – The Instrumentation, Systems & Automation Society and in October 2008 the Council changed the name again to The International Society of Automation, but still retaining the trademark symbol, ISA at the beginning of the name.