History of NWACC
The NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium was founded in 1987 by ten institutions: the Universities of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington; Oregon State and Washington State; the North Dakota University System, the Oregon Graduate Institute, the Boeing Corporation, and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). Its mission was to promote education, research, and economic development in the Pacific Northwest. It began by creating a high-speed network to link the Northwest to the rapidly emerging national Internet.
NWACC operations were initially housed at the Boeing Company and later moved to the University of Washington. NWACC's network clientele quickly grew to more than 170 colleges, universities, libraries, hospitals, museums, professional associations, and corporations such as Microsoft, Nike, and Intel. In 1995, the network services component of NWACC, NorthWestNet, was spun off as a for-profit subsidiary and in 1997 it was sold to Verio, Inc.
The membership of NWACC currently includes thirty-four colleges and universities, two statewide university systems, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Chartered as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, in 2001 NWACC was designated a “supporting organization” to provide grants to its member institutions in furtherance of the Consortium’s mission and goals. Admittance of new members is by Board invitation.