FEGA's 30 years of Professional/Master Engravers

At the February 1986 annual meeting the Professional engraver classification was voted on. This is from the August 1986 FEGA newsletter. Later on the classification was changed to Master.

Hard to believe it's been 30 years!

It's sad realizing how many of our old friends are no longer with us and the difference they made to us all

Amen Marty! It would be fun to see the next 30 go by but that is so far past pipe dream as to be laughable.

ONWARD AND UPWARD!!

FANCYGUN said:

It's sad realizing how many of our old friends are no longer with us and the difference they made to us all

Click to expand...

Indeed Marty. Some real pioneers in that list. McKenzie, Prudhomme, Bone, Swartley just to name a few.

Edit: I didn't mean to imply Swartley is no longer with us! Just that I consider him a pioneer.

Thanks Sam, and thanks for posting that list. I did find the Feb '86 news letter about starting the pro category but not that list.

It’s been fun researching all of this for the new FEGA Master Engraver certificates. Reading back through the old original newsletters and then Engraver magazines to get names and dates because memories have faded, has been challenging.

The program was discussed amongst the members during 1984/1985. The Master name was discussed but was seen as elitist and caused a lot of heated debate within the membership so everyone settled for, and voted on the name of Professional. It was a highly controversial topic at the time.

It was finally ratified at the February 8th general meeting in 1986. An evaluation committee was formed that day and 30 original applicants were passed as FEGA “Professionals” which is the list Sam has posted.

Within a few short years the name changed to Certified Professional and was known as that till 2009 when it underwent another name change and became officially FEGA Master Engraver. All Professionals and Certified Professionals were grandfathered into the FEGA Master Engravers program.

The very first successful FEGA Master Engraver applicant on January 23rd 2009 was Brian Powley.

To think, this all started with an idea and has grown from there. The FEGA Master Engraver program has evolved and changed over the last 30 years and will continue to evolve. It has all been done through trial and error as there was nothing else to compare it to or take the lead from so it has had to make its own path. The program has had its fair share of criticism, some deserved and some not so. But it has survived and become all the better for it. It remains to this day, the only game in town where someone can start out engraving, join FEGA and up-skill their work and have their work judged by their peers and be recognised as a FEGA Master engraver.

I would hope that in the next hundred years it will still be around and something to aspire to within FEGA. I take my hat off to everyone that has presented their work both successfully and unsuccessfully over the years as it’s not an easy thing to do. Many have had several goes at it before they became certified.

As Marty has said, there are a lot of those originals that are no longer with us. They were true American pioneers in the art of engraving and their contribution to FEGA and the American engraving arts scene is huge. But thankfully there are also a lot of the originals with us and still contributing to this day watching the new generations forging their way into the engraving world.

We stand on the shoulders of giants and we should never forget that.

Cheers
Andrew

Andrew, you have done an excellent job with the research. That is the best ( and only) summation of the history of the Masters program i have seen to date!
Thank you very much for all the hard work.

Sam A, I remember that '86 meeting well. Meeting you was one of the highlights of it. Lots of stories could be told of various controversies over the years with name proposals and applicants themselves. But I consider FEGA a big family and it's always nice to see everybody.