Award Recipients
2022
The USMA Fellow Award program is pleased to announce that the 2022 award recipient is Henry Knoepfle.
USMA’s Fellow Awards were revived in 2021, and hopefully will continue to be used to recognize exceptional activity by USMA members. In this case, Henry Knoepfle well-deserves this recognition, considering the number and quality of activities accomplished since joining USMA. Henry is highly motivated in looking for opportunities to promote the metric system. Readers may recall stories from past Metric Today newsletters, in which Knoepfle volunteered to lead efforts that otherwise would not have happened without his efforts.
2021
The USMA Fellow Award program has been restarted with the announcement of 2 recipients of the Award for 2021. The USMA Fellows are Elizabeth J. Benham and the late Paul R. Trusten.
Elizabeth Benham of the NIST Metric and Laws Program has been very active in organizing online meetings for USMA officers as well as hosting the last USMA Board of Directors meeting in 2019. These bi-monthly online meetings allow USMA officers to interact in a more timely fashion than in the past. As a result, the number of USMA activities is at a higher level than in many years, thanks to the organizing efforts of Elizabeth. Elizabeth has also accomplished many things in her NIST metric role, but she is being given this award in particular for her efforts to collaborate and to assist the USMA as one of its most active members. She is involved as a judge for USMA’s Metric Awards program and is actively promoting the metric system by including USMA information and materials/supplies in NIST’s Teachers Kits that go to thousands of metric advocates around the USA each year.
Paul Trusten was not able to receive this Fellow Award due to his untimely death due to COVID-19 in late 2020. This was sad news for USMA and its metric cause. Paul was the USMA’s Vice President for the last several years as well as the USMA’s Public Relations Director. He was an excellent advocate of the US metrication, often logically and consistently pointing out that the US is ripe for its metric transition, and that much of the US’s reluctance to go metric is not based on valid principles but often just people’s unwillingness to do what is right for the USA. Paul was adamant that we need to adopt the measurement system used by the rest of the world, with the US being the only major holdout which has not yet fully adopted the metric system.
These two new names have been added to the master list of USMA Fellows Awards which was compiled and reported in the issue of Metric Today. That list brought USMA’s Fellow records up to date to make sure that no Awards have been overlooked.
USMA’s Fellow Award Master List
(Reprinted from the issue of Metric Today)
The USMA Fellows Program was inaugurated in 1984 at a USMA Board of Directors meeting. The first set of Fellow Awards were presented to 10 recipients in 1985. These were USMA members who had been active in advancing metrication for many years, such as the late Louis Sokol, USMA’s President Emeritus; Valerie Antoine, USMA’s Executive Director Emeritus; and Lorelle Young, USMA’s most recent President.
The Fellow grade is awarded to USMA members who have shown prolonged and very active support of USMA activities and US metrication. A Fellow candidate must be nominated by two USMA members after they determine whether his/her metric background fulfills the established Fellow requirements. This background is thoroughly investigated and results are placed before the USMA Board of Directors who review the qualifications and vote on whether the candidate warrants the Fellow rating.
Dr. William Hooper, a USMA vice president at the time, was in charge of USMA’s new Fellow rating program. At a 1985 Board of Directors meeting, a decision was made to limit the number of Fellow ratings awarded to three USMA members each year.
The list of USMA Fellows had not been updated since 1998. Starting with a typed list of USMA Fellows provided by Valerie Antoine, a master list has now been constructed. All the names on that first list have been found in Metric Today, noted as having received the Fellow Award. Additions to the master list after 1998 were a result of Fellow recipients only being found in Metric Today.
The new master list of Fellows now includes 37 names, with the most recent Fellow award in 2007. The Fellows program is currently inactive, since no further Fellows have been nominated. However, there are members who deserve recognition for their contributions to US metrication. USMA members can start a Fellow nomination for another USMA member, with an appropriate form from USMA, but two USMA members need to make a case for a nominee to be eligible to become a Fellow.
The names of all USMA Fellows are included below. USMA would appreciate hearing from any Fellows who may have been missed, to make sure the new master list of Fellows is complete.
Chronological list of USMA Fellows (1986–2007): Louis F. Sokol; Lorelle Young; Valerie Antoine; E. James Tew, Jr.; George Stoner; Edwin M. Belles, Jr.; John O. Aberg; Fred H. Helgren; William R. O’Hara; Bryan Dyck; Ernst Lange; Gerald W. (Jerry) Hanson; Mark Gerke; Karl B. Nolte; Martin Morrison; A. N. Siggson; Don Jordan; Bill Cable; William (W. K.) Freeman; Anton Brasunas; John Dunlop; Gary Carver; Terry Richardson; Ralph Carlson; R. Maxwell Tinsley; James H. Turner; Albert Antoine; Don Hillger; Bill Hooper; Pat Windham; Julie Ann Hugick; James K. Elwell; James R. Frysinger; Mark W. Henschel; Christopher Stone; William Brenner; Stan Jakuba
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