In January 1987 a container with ISA files traveled from Amsterdam to Madrid and the ISA Secretariat started a new life. Soon after we had unpacked and installed ourselves, preparations began for the ISA XII World Congress of Sociology in Madrid. In those days the ISA had some 2,000 members (as compared to 6,000 today), the Congress program was typed on regular typewriters, and fax was the latest means of communication.
It was then that José Ignacio Reguera, known to all of us as Nacho, joined the Secretariat’s staff and he has been working with us ever since – for nearly 30 years. He has now decided to enjoy his retirement. During these three decades, Nacho developed our membership database and when the Internet era began he became the ISA’s first webmaster. Thank you, Nacho, for all your dedicated work in advancing the ISA from a home-run association to its modern international structure.
Izabela Barlinska, ISA Executive Secretary, Madrid, Spain