IEST journeys to the past to move forward into the future of contamination control
By Roberta Burrows, IEST Deputy Executive Director; and Linda Fischer, IEST Technical Editor
Editor Frank Kramer, in the second issue of a new journal, wrote that the purpose of the publication was “to make facts available, and to turn light on the existence of a strong, coordinated body of men and women dedicated to the advancement of Environmental Engineering. It is a way to establish the highly respected science on the top-level plane.”
Fifty years later, the successor to that publication, the Journal of the IEST, is still addressing the science of environmental engineering, as well as that of contamination control. Published by the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST), the Journal will celebrate 50 years of continuous publication with special events and features throughout 2008.
Kramer was editor of the Journal of Environmental Engineering, published by the Society of Environmental Engineers (SEE) based in Los Angeles, CA. The 20-page first issue in October 1958 opened with a paper on a facility for horizontal vibration testing with electromagnetic exciters that discussed the “development and use of a small flat plate floating on an oil film during combined vibration and differential temperature test investigations.”
Another paper discussed a new precision centrifuge to test TITAN guidance system components, specifically an accelerometer that can “measure accelerations as minute as 0.000005 G.” The third paper detailed gauges and pumping equipment that would work in space and high vacuum. There was a report from a random vibration seminar and another from a symposium on acoustic testing.
In a year-end review of 1958 SEE activities in the February 1959 issue, chairman L.D. Carver noted the large number of members who had renewed memberships: “this has been even more encouraging in view of accelerated activity in this area by a competing environmental organization.” Perhaps that group was the Institute of Environmental Engineers (IEE), which had been the science section of the Environmental Equipment Institute until separating in 1956. In April 1959, the SEE and the IEE merged to become the Institute of Environmental Sciences (IES).
The Journal of Environmental Engineering was selected to be the official publication of the IES; the first issue under the IES banner was in June 1959. In October 1959, the journal was renamed the Journal of Environmental Sciences. From then, the publication underwent a series of name changes to reflect changes in the organization. From 1990 through 1994, the name was Journal of the IES, and from 1995