The League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA), founded in 2004, is a professional association for IT Administrators.

History and formation

Originally, the corporation was created as "The System Administrators Guild, Inc" in July 2004 by volunteers of the USENIX Association as part of a plan to spin off its SAGE Special Technical Group into a separate organization. After the spin-off from the USENIX Association was halted in November 2005, the volunteers involved in the spin-off opted to move forward as a new organization which was renamed LOPSA, and began reorganizing itself into an independent entity. On June 13th of 2025, it was announced that LOPSA would be dissolved as an organization.

Scope and operations

The organization's mission is "to advance the practice of system administration; to support, recognize, educate, and encourage its practitioners; and to serve the public through education and outreach on system administration issues". LOPSA has several ongoing programs that it uses to further its mission.

Mentorship

The LOPS
mentorship program
was conceived in 2010 as a way to network inexperienced system administrators with senior members of the organization who could help them on project-related topics. As of January 2013, the mentorship program accepts ongoing, rather than project-based, projects. Protege status is open to any system administrator irrespective of membership in LOPSA, while mentor status requires an active membership in the organization.

WiAC Scholarship

There is a well-recognized disparity between men and women in

STEM fields Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context o ...

. LOPSA provides an annual stipend for one woman to attend the USENI
Women in Advanced Computing
(WiAC) Summit. The recipient is chosen through an essay contest.

Regional conferences

LOPSA has formed multiple local chapters in cities in throughout the United States. Two LOPSA chapters have formed regionally-targeted system administration conferences.
Cascadia IT Conference
in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

Training and tutorials

Organizational structure

The organization is a 501c3 not-for-profit group, and is governed by a nine-member

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

. The first board was elected in July 2005 by the membership of SAGE. Elections are held each year for either four or five board members, with each election term being for two years. LOPSA is headquartered in

Mount Laurel, New Jersey Mount Laurel is a Township (New Jersey), township in Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township, and all of Burlington County, is a part of the Philadelphia-Reading, Pennsylvania, Reading-Camd ...

Chapters and affiliations

LOPSA fosters community through local chapters and affiliation with and support for other local groups.

Chapters in the Americas

* Seattle, Washington
Seattle Area Systems Administrators Guild
* Eastern Tennessee
ETENN
* Columbus, Ohio
LOPSA-US-OH-Columbus
* Los Angeles, California
LOPSA-LA
* San Diego, California
LOPSA-SD
* Ottawa
Ottawa Valley System Administrators Guild

Established affiliates

* Los Angeles, California
UNIX Users Association of southern California - LA Chapter

Other regional system administration groups

* Americas ** San Francisco Bay Area
BayLISA
* Australia *
Information Technology Professionals Association (ITPA)

External links

Official LOPSA website

LOPSA Governance website

LOPSA Twitter Feed

LOPSA on Facebook

Charity Navigator summary profile

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:League Of Professional System Administrators System administration Professional associations based in the United States Information technology organizations based in North America