our history

The TPF Users Group first met back in 1969 as five airlines, American, Aleghany, Delta, Eastern and Capital (United), to discuss the automation of airline schedules. From that first meeting, a cooperative effort was formed with IBM to create the first operating system, called ACP (Airline Control Program).  This group of companies began meeting officially in 1973 and has been meeting ever since, twice a year, in the Spring and Fall.  The organization was known during these early years as the ACP Users Group or AUG and was run by an Executive Committee, made up of volunteers from a number of member companies.

Through 1991, the meetings were hosted by a member company, with the costs of that meeting borne by the hosting company.  In the Fall of 1991, the registration fee for attendees was increased to cover the costs of the conference and the conferences thereafter became self-funded.  Starting in 1992, a Meeting Management Company (Premier Group) was retained to handle the negotiations and logistics of putting on the conferences.  Also, at the Spring 1991 conference, the name of the organization was changed to the TPF Users Group or TPFUG to coincide with IBM's name change of the Operating system.

In 1994, the TPF Users Group celebrated the 25th year of TPF (and ACP) serving the Airline, Hotel, Financial and other industries requiring a high-availability, high-volume, transaction processing environment.

In 1996, with the size of the organization growing, this "informal" group that had been meeting for over 25 years, was incorporated in the state of Colorado, under the name of the "TPF Users Group Corporation". A formal Board of Directors and Officers were elected, based on volunteers from the membership.  

In 2005, the meeting management company was transitioned to Really Great Meetings.

Today, the organization is a non-profit corporation, run by a board of directions and elected officials.  The Corporation has no paid employees and all members, directors, officers and chairpersons volunteer their time to make this organization a success.  A Meeting Management Company is retained by the Corporation to facilitate meeting planning, registration and on-site conference organization.  The corporation also retains financial planners and legal counsel consultants as necessary.