The Virginia Technology and Engineering Education Association can trace its beginnings in 1958 when they first formed as the Virginia Industrial Arts Association. The Virginia Industrial Arts Association (VIAA) consisted of industrial arts educators seeking to promote their profession and provide a state-wide forum for their ideas. In 1964 the association became affiliated with the American Industrial Arts Association (AIAA). The association also worked closely with the American Industrial Arts Students Association (AIASA). The Virginia Industrial Arts Education Council in which the VIAA worked with, had its beginnings as the Trade and Industrial Division under the State Board of Education, and then later as the Trade and Industrial Service, Vocational Division. A state-level office within the State Board of Education formed at the urging of VIAA in 1969, known as the Industrial Arts Service. Four years later in 1973, the Virginia Industrial Arts Education Council was created, to provide an exchange of ideas and concerns between educators, in order to better promote and teach the industrial arts, as well as prepare future industrial arts educators. By the mid-1980s, a shift towards technology related curriculum started taking place in industrial arts education, in that the Virginia Industrial Arts Association became the Virginia Technology Education Association (VTEA). Throughout the 1990s to the 2000s the shift towards STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) based curriculum became more prevalent, in which the Virginia Technology Education Association became the Virginia Technology and Engineering Education Association (VTEEA) in 2011. Currently VTEEA is a non-profit organization that is governed by a Board of Directors and represents over a thousand Virginia educators, promoting technology and engineering education throughout Virginia’s schools. The association still closely works with the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA-formerly AIAA and ITEA) and the Technology Student Association (TSA-formerly AIASA).

Note written by Kathleen Smith, Special Collections Metadata Specialist