APCG Distinguished Service Award

Figure 1

Robin E. Datel, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, California State University, Sacramento, has been an active member and mainstay of the APCG for the past 20 years. She has presented papers and led field trips at annual meetings, focusing on the urban geography of the Sacramento region. She served multiple terms on the membership and nominations committees and chaired the ad hoc committee that implemented the wishes of Margaret Trussell regarding her bequest to the APCG Women's Network.

Along with Dennis Dingemans, Robin was co-editor of the APCG Yearbook from 1988 through 1992 (volumes 50-54). With their help, Oregon State University Press made the transition from traditional to electronic production of the Yearbook. A series of histories of Pacific Northwest geography departments appeared under her co-editorship.

As APCG vice president, Robin contributed to revision of the APCG bylaws. As president, she was faced with finding the Yearbook a new publisher after 3 decades at OSU Press, a mission she accomplished by securing the services of the University of Hawai'i Press. Her presidential address, "Taking a Moment to Bask in Our Past: Sixty Years of APCG and AAG Presidential Addresses," provides a historical overview of Pacific Coast geography.

Robin's warmth, calmness, humor, and scholarship have made her a much-loved mentor for students and for those who followed her as APCG president. She has a great sense of institutional memory and dedication to the organization.

During the period in which she served the APCG in so many capacities, she was a part-time faculty member at the University of California, Davis, and at CSU, Sacramento. This year in her new tenure-track position, she organized CSUS's first group of students to attend an APCG meeting. The committee hopes it is the first of many.

In recognition of her many special services to the association, we give Robin Datel the APCG Distinguished Service Award.