We achieve this mission through implementation of our strategic plan, while being guided by our history and adhering to our bylaws.
ASBPA has adopted a Strategic Plan for 2025-2027. The plan outlines our mission and strategic directions, aligning with our nearly 100-year commitment to preserving, protecting, and enhancing coasts to advance these goals:
The plan also highlights:
The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association was founded in 1926 by individuals who recognized the need for an organized effort to combat erosion, a serious problem in many coastal areas. Experience had shown that long stretches of shore were affected, making protective efforts by individual property owners or small communities futile. The expertise required to design comprehensive programs of protection was largely lacking. In bygone days, the needs of navigation were regarded as paramount and there was no redress available for damages to adjacent shores by navigation works.
The founding members of the Association were active in persuading the Congress to enact legislation authorizing Federal sharing of the cost, first of erosion studies of specific problem areas and, later, of project works. Then, as now, this required data collection, research on coastal processes, and the development and the use of analytical techniques and hydraulic models (and, today, numerical models as well).
Download the ASBPA Bylaws (updated 2019). (PDF – 378kb)
The American Shore & Beach Preservation Association does not unlawfully discriminate internally (in its administrative and program operations) or externally (in provision of services) on the basis of race, political orientation, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, or mental or physical disability or any other status prohibited by applicable law.
To speak to the Civil Rights Coordinator for ASBPA, please contact Brad and Leslie Pickel, ASBPA Managing Directors at managing@asbpa.org.