History

The Environmental Services Advisory Committee (ESAC) was originally formed in 1969 under the Board of Health to help develop curriculum and advise the Oregon Department of Education’s Vocational Education Committee on job related training and the continuing educational needs to serve the professional environmental community.

In 1987, the Environmental Continuing Educational Unit committee (ECEU) was formed to serve as a clearing house for the evaluation of educational and training programs as they related to Continuing Educational Unit (CEU) criteria and to maintain training records of participants on a voluntary basis.

In 1989 the Oregon Department of Education and the Office of Community Colleges reorganized the committee to broaden its scope of participants and formalize its functions.

In 1995, ESAC was incorporated as a non-profit entity and renamed the Oregon Environmental Services Advisory Council (OESAC) and its mission statement was updated to serve the water and wastewater industries by evaluating continuing education course offerings, responding to legislative issues, and advising the Dept. of Education on the educational and program needs of the industry.

In 2001, the Continuing Education Unit (CEU) Committee was charged with: establishing guidelines for determining the relevancy of training materials; developing and publicizing to trainers and sponsors, a process for evaluating training courses and assigning CEU credits; formalizing a process for appealing those evaluations; establishing a complaint review process; and establishing and publicizing a monthly meeting schedule.

OESAC is forever indebted to Dr. Warren C. Westgarth for his tireless efforts in guiding the council from its inception as an ad-hoc committee in 1969 until he retired in 2006.