A Tribute To Glenn E. Jackson
Chester C. Haddan
Editor's Note: Mr. Jackson is retiring as Executive Director of both the American Orthotics and Prosthetics Association and of the American Board for Certification. He will continue active as a Consultant to both organizations.
Glenn E. Jackson, like many other prominent Americans of our time, started his early career as an Iowa farm boy. He was born in the small country town of Gilmore City, Iowa, and spent most of his early life with his parents as a farm boy in Central Iowa. He attended grade school in Des Moines, Iowa, and was graduated from High School at the small town of Logan, Iowa, as an honor student in 1907. He attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1913 and later did graduate work at Columbia University in New York City. While in College, Glenn received letters in Football, Baseball, Basketball and Tennis, was Editor of the College Paper and was also Editor of the Junior Annual during his Junior year. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. He earned his entire college expenses except a scholarship and about $300 from his father by waiting tables, firing furnaces, delivering groceries and mowing lawns. In spite of this vigorous schedule, he entered three State Oratorical contests in which he won first prize on one occasion and second on another.
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His first job after graduating from College was as Community Work Secretary with the YMCA, in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he remained from 1913 to 1919. He was in the United States Army with Rank of Captain for one year. He again returned to community work as Secretary of the YMCA in Minneapolis, where he remained until 1925. In 1925 he became Secretary of High School Boys Work, National Council YMCA in New York City, where he remained until 1929. It was during this period he first became interested in Association work and he accepted a position as Commissioner for the Funeral Service Bureau of America for one year. Apparently his years with the YMCA were so strongly ingrained in his make-up, that he again returned to YMCA work as Associate General Secretary at Rochester, New York where he remained until 1935. As many of you who read this will recall, in 1935 the United States was in the throes of one of the greatest depression periods in the history of mankind. Because of Mr. Jackson' great interest in social work, he became Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Emergency Relief Administration for two years and was then promoted to Executive Director, Bureau Public Assistance, New York State Department of Social Welfare, where he remained through 1942. In 19-13 he became Director of Community Programs for the Federal Office of Civilian Defense. It was shortly after his tour of duly with the Office of Civilian Defense that the author became acquainted with him. Many of you will recall the Federal Trade Commission and the OALMA had worked together developing a set of Fair Trade practice rules covering our profession. A Public hearing for the adoption of these rules was held by the Federal Trade Commission in Chicago, early in the Summer of 1946. Regulations of the Federal Trade Commission made it mandatory that someone not directly associated with the OALMA be obtained to read these rules to all those present, in order that they could be discussed and acted upon. The services of Mr. Jackson were obtained for this task by your author, who was then President of the OALMA. The Officers and Directors of OALMA were impressed with Mr. Jackson's understanding of our problems and his sensible approach towards solving them, and as a result he was hired as Executive Director on a temporary basis in the Summer of 1946. In the Fall of 1946 at the Annual Meeting of the OALMA held in Minneapolis, he was presented to the membership with the recommendation of the Board of Directors that he be hired on a permanent basis. All of you know that he was hired as recommended and that he has been our Executive Director since and will remain our Executive Director until October 31 of this year. He has asked to be relieved of his duties at that time and that a successor be appointed. During the period he served as Executive Director of the OALMA he has engaged in other activities which have brought honor and prestige to the OALMA. He served as Instructor on the subject of "The discussion method, group dynamics" at Institutes for Trade Association Executives at Yale and Michigan State Summer Schools. He served on the American Society of Association Executives Group Insurance Committee of America for eight years. This Committee developed the "model" Retirement Plan for Association Executives which was later adopted by the OALMA. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Association Executives in 1956 and a member of its Program Committee from 1957 to 1960.
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Mr. Jackson's hard work, sincerity, and dedication to duty won for the OALMA the greatest honors that have ever been awarded a Trade Association. The OALMA was given an Annual Award for Outstanding Services to its members four times, and one of these was the Grand Award. No other Trade Association in America has received such recognition from the American Society of Association Executives.
Glenn and his wife Vesta are known and loved through out the length and breadth of America. I am sure that every member of the Orthotic and Prosthetic Industry, whether they be dues-paying members of the Association or not, will want to join with Glenn and Vesta's friends in wishing them many happy years when they retire from the active and busy life they have lived in Washington.
Honors For Hanicke
Erich Hanicke, C.P.&O., of Kansas City, is winning international recognition for his skill in developing new appliances. Excerpta Medica, the International Medical Abstracting Service, has asked him to forward a summary of his article from the September issue of our Journal, entitled: "Helpful Devices from the Hanicke Facility."
Excerpta Medica is a nonprofit international organization founded in 1946 to abstract the medical literature of the world. It is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The abstract service has also requested a summary of the article: "Clamp Device to Aid in Placement of Tunnel Pins of Bilateral Amputee with Cineplastic Operated Prosthesis." This appeared in the December 1959 issue and was written by Miss Muriel E. Zimmerman and Townsend H. Hicks of the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
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