The Emmett Leahy Award was created by Rodd Exelbert, founder of the Information and Records Management (IRM) magazine. In 1966 he was looking for a way to spotlight outstanding contributions to the IRM profession through an award when he heard a presentation by Christopher Cameron, Managing Partner of Leahy & Company, at the ARMA Convention in Houston about the work of
Emmett J. Leahy. It inspired him to want to name the award after Leahy. Following discussions with Leahy & Company, and gaining the permission of Leahy’s widow Betty, the Emmett Leahy Award, for "a man or woman whose unique contributions to records control, filing, and information retrieval have advanced the information and records management profession", was born. Exelbert convened a committee of IRM experts who worked to develop a set of selection criteria and a list of candidates to evaluate against the criteria. The first award, in the form of a personalised plaque for the recipient to retain, was presented to Ed Rosse, US Social Security Administration, at the 1967 ARMA Annual Meeting. Exelbert administered the award until 1980 using the IRM magazine to publicize it and solicit nominations, which widened its scope and increased the number of potential candidates. He introduced changes to the process by including at least one Emmett Leahy Award recipient on the selection committee. Around the same time ARMA decided that the award should no longer be presented at its meetings, since it was not involved in the process and were concerned it was competing against its own awards. They asked their official certifying body, the
Institute of Certified Records Managers (ICRM), to assume administration of the award. At a meeting in late 1981 the Board of Regents of the ICRM considered this request and established a committee to examine the issue. Over the next three years discussions took place with Leahy Business Archives Inc. and Mrs Betty Leahy White, Emmett Leahy’s widow, about the award’s future administration. Formal delegation of authority was finally secured in 1983 and the award process resumed in 1984 with the next award being made in 1985. The award has continued to be sponsored but it is the exclusive responsibility of the Emmett Leahy Award Committee to select the annual recipient. Following the initial sponsorship by the publisher of the Information and Records Management Magazine and then the ICRM, Pierce Leahy Archives became the sponsors in the late 1980s followed by Iron Mountain in 2000. Other sponsors have included Huron Consulting Group and
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. In 2019 Preservica, a digital preservation company, became the award’s sponsor. == Nomination and selection process ==