A
BRIEF HISTORY OF
THE EAPA CHESAPEAKE CHAPTER
On
January 12, 1981, nine Baltimore-area Employee Assistance Professionals met in
Towson, Maryland to inaugurate the newly formed Chesapeake Chapter of the
Association of Labor-Management Administrator and Consultants on Alcoholism or
ALMACA. This meeting followed receipt of
a letter from Ed Small, the national ALMACA president, confirming establishment
of the Chapter. The first order of
business was the election of officers.
The membership elected Phil McKenna as President, Jim Murphy, Vice
President and Elizabeth Hainesworth as Secretary-Treasurer. The original members also included Jim
Gaglioni, Pat Heubusch, Bob Lake, Bob Miller, Bob Myers and Joe Quinn. The chapter meetings were originally held at
the Hidden Brook outpatient center in Hampton House on East Joppa Road in
Towson, Maryland.
The
genesis of this group, however, had begun many years earlier in the 1970s with
members of the Baltimore chapter of the American Council on Alcoholism (BACA),
some of whom had an interest in the then embryonic, mostly academic study of
industrial aspects of alcoholism treatment.
This interest gave rise to a Committee known as the Industrial Advisory
Board (IAB), which often met before or after Council meetings. As the field matured and concrete programs
became more visible, another group of consultants and administrators
formed. Thus, the IAB began the a group
called "SOAP" which stood for the Sub-committee of Occupational Alcoholism
Programmers, which also met quarterly before or after the American Council on
Alcoholism meetings.
The
80s were truly "the golden years" for Employee Assistance Programs. Celebrating its tenth year in 1980, ALMACA
was truly growing into a national organization, with thirty chapters from
Seattle to San Francisco to Houston to Boston.
And the Chesapeake Chapter made 31!
Mirroring the growth at the national level, the Chapter grew from its
initial twelve members (the minimum for starting a chapter) to over a hundred
individual and associate members with a mailing list of 300. In 1988, the dream of a professional
credential the Certified Employee Assistance Professional (CEAP) and
accompanying Code of Professional Conduct was realized with the establishment of
the Employee Assistance Certification Commission (EACC).
In
1989, ALMACA formally unveiled its new name--EAPA, the Employee Assistance
Professionals Association. The
Chesapeake Chapter members hosted the Annual Conference in November of that year
and again in November 1997, in addition to hosting EAPA's District I Conference
in 1995. In 1992, the Chapter was proud
to co-sponsor the Mid-Atlantic Region's newest EAPA Chapter, the Potomac
Chapter, which covers the Montgomery, Frederick and Washington counties of
Maryland.
In
September of 1999, the Chesapeake Chapter served as host to the first EAPA
Mid-Atlantic Regional Officers Retreat held at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center
in Marriottsville, Maryland. There 23
representatives from the ten Chapters from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., came together to learn how to
better serve their chapters.
In 2012, the Chesapeake Chapter hosted the International EAP Conference in Baltimore.
The chapter also participates in the annual EAPA District 1 Leaders Summit that includes exiting and incoming officers, as well as member leaders from Chapters from Maine to Virginia.
