Joining nations 1947-1990

20

JOI ING NATIONS

A Leroy, France, Scientific and T echnical Secretary, 1950-74.

other was Mademoiselle Lise Blosset, a senior staff member of the lnstitut de Soudure, who was a French delegate on the Governing Council from the creation of the IIW and who succeeded Mr Leroy as Chairman of the Documentation Commission in 1950. When the latter joined the Executive Council he was accompanied to each meeting by Lise Blosset in the role of assistant. Qualified both as a lawyer and an engineer, she was well able to hold her own in a world essentially dominated by men, while her charm and tact greatly facilitated harmonious discussions within the Executive Council and the passage of measures proposed by the Scientific and Technical Secretariat. Inevitably a woman of her abilities was not content to play a subsidiary role indefinitely and she left the lnstitut de Soudure in l 961 to become a director of the French National Centre for Spatial Studies where she pursued a successful career until her untimely death in 1974· Such was the esteem in which she was held by the Executive Council that her departure was felt so to diminish the Scientific and Technical Secretariat as to necessitate some form of reinforcement - in the event the Technical Committee whose creation and role are described later. Following the creation of the Scientific and Technical Secretariat in l 950, the Executive Council evolved further in 195 l when Pro-