President of EATA 1992 until 1993

I actually was president of EATA by default. Having lost an internal vote to Ann Waters (in 1991), I became president half a year later after she unfortunately suffered a stroke and had to step down from office.

Let me highlight three major developments from this time:

The 1992 Stockholm conference was in my view a highlight and a breakthrough moment in EATA’s standing. The catalyst for this was a courageous Swedish academic, who was a guest and keynote speaker. His observation that the conference was rich on application but poor on academic rigor set the parameters for EATA proactively and definitely getting away from its inherited pop psychology image.

The European developments of the early 90’s. The wall had come down only two years before and the opening of eastern Europe was foreground. Many trainers made contacts with professionals in the east, from St Petersburg, via Prague till Bucharest.

The PTSC/COC training and certifications procedures proved here their value, as they established a solid base for training from early on. And lot of the work was to start inviting their representatives to join the council. It marked the start for EATA growing from about 15 affiliated associations till the 30 now.

image029Another international issue was more transatlantic, showing in the deteriating relationship between EATA and ITAA. As a start both organizations were looking for a more mature relationship.

EATA felt to have grown out of a type of membership what was generally felt and considered as being subservient to ITAA while paying for it. A second important difference was that EATA had set its priorities on professionalism, which had become irrelevant at that time for ITAA’s priority on membership.

As history has shown, the differences were at the time not reconciliable and ITAA and EATA needed a clear break from the old relationship, which happened in 1995. I was involved in that break in my follow up role as ITAA president.

Only after that, a new relation could grow in the following ten years.