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History - 1920's
(Summary/Commentary)

Beginning at some time prior to 1920, some of the purchasing officers supporting higher education met during the annual convention of National Purchasing Agents Association (NPA), the organization that was to become NAPM.  At the 1921 NPA meeting at the Severin Hotel in Indianapolis on October 10, a meeting of campus purchasing professionals was held that led to the forming of the Educational Buyers Association (EBA).  Those who attended discussed a range of topics not very different from what you might expect to find on a current NAEB Regional meeting program.  For example they discussed the “pool” buying of alcohol, a hot topic at the time.  However, the two of the major reasons for considering the establishment of a separate organization, was to share information and to enable “pool” buying. 

By the time the new organization again met probably during the 1922 annual convention of the National Purchasing Agents Association, held in Rochester NY on May 16^th and 17^th the list of commodities they hoped to purchase using “co-operative arrangements” had grown to include gauze, lamps, tires, alcohol and sheets, towels & pillow cases. 

At a December 8^th and 9^th 1922 meeting in Ithaca, NY, the founders, with the blessing of the Association of University & College Business Officers of the Eastern States, decided to publish a Bulletin to facilitate the sharing of information.  The first issue was apparently dated January 1, 1923. 

The “Eastern Association” later became a region of NACUBO when that organization later established a national office in Washington DC.  Ironically NAEB played a leading role in the establishment of a NACUBO national Office decades later. 

Apparently, the pool buying of alcohol amounted to some significance as by the end of 1923, the board member handling the orders on a volunteer basis announced that the work had become a “real burden” and “pointed out the need for financial help.”  The arrangement was cancelled despite the benefits members apparently realized. 

By 1925 Cornell’s George Frank had raised the possibility of forming a more permanent organization.  Records of the May 20, 1926 meeting in Columbus, OH refers to the Educational buyers Association as having been “formed five years ago in Indianapolis.”  At that 1926 meeting, the group adopted a resolution defining the purpose of the organization as “ the study and comparison of supplies generally purchased by Educational Institutions” and set membership dues at “$25.00 per year for all institutions except those having less than a thousand students regularly attending in which case it shall be $10.00 per year.”  Forty members mostly in the northeast and Midwest were listed as dues paying members. 

Although Cornell’s George Frank probably cannot be credited with founding NAEB, he was clearly one of the short list of key players involved in its early development and served as its president in 1927.  The records available seem to indicate that Frank had a clear vision of what the association could be and worked effectively to “sell” his vision to others and to grow the organization.  George Frank later was the founder of the Educational and Institutional Cooperative Service, higher education’s not for profit purchasing cooperative. 

By the time its first decade ended, the basic structure of the organization was in place, a fairly clear vision of what the Association could be had emerged, a constitution had been adopted, and the formation of regional groups, one of the key elements of the Association had been envisioned.