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Tuesday, Jul. 11, 2006
                
 
About the NNA » History of the NNA
The National Notary Association was founded in 1957 when an energetic young businessman, Raymond C. Rothman, decided to apply for a California Notary Public commission. Once commissioned, however, he was unable to find any guidance on how to properly perform his official duties.

Rothman reasoned that if his own exhaustive search for professional training and support ended in frustration, many other new Notaries would be similarly frustrated.

He then decided to become the resource that Notaries were looking for. Thus was born the California Notary Association, predecessor of the National Notary Association that officially came into its own in 1964 when the state organization officially became a subsidiary of the new national entity.

Operating at first from his own kitchen table, Rothman researched, wrote and published the first of a series of definitive sources on and for the American Notary, including Customs and Practices of Notaries Public and Digest of Notary Laws in the United States. He also created a newsletter, an occasional publication that served as the forerunner of the Association's membership magazine and newspaper today. Fluent in several languages, Rothman established ties with foreign Notary groups, and his landmark Customs and Practices was even translated into Japanese and Spanish.

Rothman's fledgling Notary association attracted members who wanted not just a thorough grounding in the basics of notarization, but also regular updates on new state laws and regulations affecting their duties. As membership grew in modest steps, the founder, always a careful businessman, was meticulous in stewarding the organization's resources and selecting its employees.

One all-important addition, in 1969, was Milton G. Valera, who became the founder's trusted vice president and first executive director and was instrumental in planning and implementing many of the NNA's early successes. In particular, three unique educational programs he founded dramatically accelerated membership gains: Notary seminars (1971), the telephone "Hotline" (1974) and the annual Notary conference (1979).

Valera became the NNA's president in 1982, following Rothman's retirement, and since that time has propelled the organization into national and international prominence, all the while keeping true to the mission of professionalizing American Notaries while providing every professional tool or service they need to excel in their careers.

Under Valera's tutelage, the NNA increasingly was sought out by state officials wanting help in modernizing their outdated Notary laws. Thus, the Association collaborated with Yale Law School to create the Model Notary Act, first published in 1973 and updated in 1984 and 2002. The Act has left an indelible impression on the laws and practices of Notaries in the United States. Also highly influential was the NNA's Notary Public Code of Professional Responsibility, published in 1998 and now recognized as the U.S. Notary's code of ethics.

In 2002, the NNA launched its Notary Signing Agent Section, the first of a growing number of specialized membership sections offering tailored training and resources to Notaries in fields with special demands. Other sections programs include Attorneys, Immigration, eNotarization, and Small Business.

Today, the Association not only educates Notaries on their critical duties and assists state officials in setting rules for Notaries, it also provides information to the public on the Notary's important role through such vehicles as the What Is A Notary Public? brochure, distributed by the hundreds of thousands. NNA experts are in constant demand in business and government as speakers, consultants and expert witnesses.

The NNA has grown to be acknowledged around the nation and the world as the voice of the American Notary. In this era of electronic documents, it has also come to be regarded as the pioneer and leader in the field of electronic notarization, with its introduction of the National eNotary Registry, the Electronic Notary Seal™ and the Enjoa® electronic record-keeping and notarization platform.

What started a half century ago as a one-man operation on a little kitchen table has expanded into a dynamic organization with over 300,000 members, a staff approaching 300 and a prominent role in leading the nation's 4.5 million Notaries into a promising electronic future.

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