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75 years of history — A reminiscence
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Sam Weissfelner, ASQ Senior, ASQ CSQE, CQA, Nominations Committee Chair and Historian with
Jean-Pierre Amiel, ASQ Senior, ASQ CQA, past Historian
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Over 75 years, we have strived to help your development for your role or business outlook. You may be tempted to question how that came about.
We did, and based on our 1957 to 2024 records, we held over 471 events (presentations, forums, plant tours, workshops, etc.) and hosted 267 presentations on a multitude of subjects. We held 44 events on Aerospace; 27 Forums (some over satellite broadcasts) and offered 27 Networking-specific activities. These covered many of our local industry sectors: Aerospace 44; Electronics 26; Food 8; Metal 8; Healthcare 6; Automobile 5; Medical 4 and Pharma 4. We rreallllly enjoyed those 5 distillery visits (😉), and a well-attended presentation on QA in cannabis production (😵💫) and an interesting presentation on Kaizen development in pediatric services. On a more serious note, we even held 9 networking and workshop activities on the greens with our sister section, ASQ Montréal Francophone Section. Over those years, we also organized 56 plant tours, held 96 quality-related events and on 33 occasions, we had guests present on ISO and other standards as well as Kaizen, Kata and Lean. There were also a few years when ASQ’s Quality Month events gave us an opportunity to invite CEO’s of major corporations to present us their views on quality.
What we can’t show you is the influence that these may have had, or the development opportunities for our members and guests who became consultants, leaders in the quality field or Managers, Directors, Presidents and CEOs of various industries. Maybe next time we can do some name-dropping...
Let us share a portion of the Foreword that JP wrote for the section’s 60 Year History that was published and presented at our Anniversary Party in 2010.
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It is often useful and very revealing to see the future through the eyes of the past. That is what archaeology has allowed us to do over the centuries.
Although our Section has only been in existence for more than sixty years, in that half-century, our members have lived through some of the most radical technological changes in world history. We have seen the beginning of a booming world economy, the transition from on-hand inspection by specialized individuals to concepts where whole organizations are assigned responsibility for their quality.
.... It takes a certain dedication to take on the task of Historian. Not only must you collect "things" but you must decide which ones are worth conserving. Over these years, our Section has had a number of Historians (see the Table). They have amassed a number of boxes full of various "treasures" and photo albums, however, these do not truly convey the spirit of these pioneers of quality and it is hoped that one day we may be able to do them proper justice.
We hope that this text will inspire not only a continued success of the Montreal Section, but may provide suggestions for future activities and orientations.
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 List of past historians
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Extracted from the History of the Montreal Section of the American Society for Quality, 60 Years in Quality, by Jean-Pierre Amiel, B. Tech, ASQ CQA, past Chair and Historian (1998-2010, 2020-2024).
See you soon.