Willam Gammon, Jr., an agent was awarded the CPCU designation in 1948 and became the first person in the Austin area to attain the designation. Jim Cochran, alson an agent received his deisgnation in 1949. Robert C. Heidrick, a partner in Consolidated Insurance, became a CPCU in 1950. These three men studied together and also took some preparatory insurnce classes under Dean J. Anderson Fitzgerald at the College of Business Administation at the University of Texas.
In 1954, Robert W. Strain, CPCU, CLU, came to the University of Texas as a professor in the College of Business Administration and he recruited and taught the first organized CPCU study classes in Austin. He later served on the State Board of Insurance, and was the Executive Secretary of the National Association of Insurance Agents and the Dean of the College of Insurance in New York. Strain was responsible for developing the interest of local insurance people in the CPCU program.
As members developed, they were assigned to the nearby Alamo Chapter in San Antonio and operated as a satellite unit under the leadership of William Gammon, Jr., until the Central Texas Chapter was chartered on January 1, 1963. The Chapter held regular meetings at the Villa Capri Convention Center with officers rotating on two year terms. William Gammon, Jr., was the first elected President, and Morris McKay the Secretary Treasurer.