REPORT: September 2006

NYSNA awards Honorary Recognition to Martha Orr

by Diane Pineiro-Zucker

At Convention in October, NYSNA’s Board of Directors will present the Honorary Recognition Award to former Executive Director Martha L. Orr.

Orr, who retired in 2003, served as NYSNA’s executive director for 19 years.

Contemplating her retirement in 2003, Orr credited the efforts of “talented and caring members, 10 dedicated presidents, 18 different boards of directors and more than 200 of the best and most expert staff in the nation” and said the association had “made remarkable and lasting achievements.”

During Orr’s tenure, NYSNA:

• increased membership from 25,000 to nearly 35,000;
• organized 35 new collective bargaining units, including two in New Jersey;
• established the Delegate Assembly;
• remained a strong professional association for all RNs in New York;
• became the recognized authority on nursing practice in New York;
• fought off numerous efforts to cut down and cut into the Nurse Practice Act;
• celebrated its centennial and published a commemorative book, Honoring Our Past: Building our Future,
• developed “from scratch” an information system that supports the creation and dissemination of essential knowledge; and
• built a headquarters building that is a testament to the strength and vitality of the association.

In 2002, Orr received the Honorary Recognition Award from the American Nurses Association.

Before coming to NYSNA in 1984, Orr was a clinical nurse specialist in nephrology at The New York Hospital where her responsibilities included the organization and management of patient care. Her primary focus was acute hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and transplantation. Orr’s career has taken her from Atlanta, Ga. to Richmond, Va. to Copenhagen, Denmark, (where she was a staff nurse at Rigshospitalet) to New York City, and finally to Latham. Since retirement, she’s settled into a new home in Texas.

Although she misses the people at NYSNA, Orr has never looked back. “I do not miss the pressure at all. It really was time for me to go,” she said. However, referring to Texas’s conservative political climate, she said, “I do miss the people. I miss having adults to talk with who share — pretty much — a common perspective on the world.”

Since her retirement, Orr has become active in Democratic political campaigns and recently served as a delegate to the Texas State Democratic Convention. She is treasurer of the local “Friends of the Library,” and president of the local chapter of the AARP. In her spare time, she is taking Spanish lessons so that she can communicate with the area’s burgeoning Hispanic population.

Orr, who chose to live in Texas to be closer to her grandchildren, Dylan, 6, and Kyle, 4, is thoroughly enjoying retirement. “I really wanted to be a grandma,” she said, adding that she is also enjoying Austin’s lively art and music communities and the time she now has to devote to genealogy, a favorite pastime. “I also love reading a book in the afternoon — all of the things that make life really rich.”

Although she has settled in to her new home in the suburbs of Austin, Orr is having a tough time adapting to Texas’ “brutal summers” and still misses New York. She is thrilled to have been chosen to receive NYSNA’s Honorary Recognition Award and looks forward to seeing friends and colleagues at the 2006 Convention.