James V. P. Conway was the 20th President of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners. |
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Mr. Conway attended St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania from 1931 to 1934 where his studies included German and Greek script.
During the period 1935 to 1936 he studied penmanship under the direction of a master penman at Cambria-Rowe Business College in Greensburg, PA. From 1936 to 1938, he received training in the field of questioned document examination under the direction of the Chief Postal Inspector, the National Bureau of Standards and other government laboratories. |
During his employ with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Mr. Conway served as an Examiner of Questioned Documents, a Postal Inspector-Document Analyst, Crime Laboratory Director, Executive Assistant to the Postmaster General, Senior Assistant Postmaster General, Deputy Postmaster General and occupied a position on the agency’s Board of Governors.
In 1980, he received the Benjamin Franklin Award, the highest award presented by the U.S. Postal Service. Beginning in 1940, Mr. Conway qualified as an expert witness in federal, state, military, and territorial courts, grand juries and other judicial matters on over 600 occasions, testifying in virtually every aspect of forensic document examination. In 1959, he authored Evidential Documents, a standard textbook for anyone seeking to become a Forensic Document Examiner. He retired from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in 1980 after more than thirty years with that agency to open a private practice in Alameda, California. In 1961, Mr. Conway, David Purtell, and Alwyn Cole were the first three government examiners invited into the membership of the ASQDE. Mr. Conway served in various positions on the ASQDE Executive Committee prior to being elected President in 1988. He also served as a Director of the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners. In February 2000, he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. In February 2001, James V. P. Conway was presented the inaugural Albert S. Osborn Award of Excellence for the year 2000, in recognition of his many contributions to the profession of forensic document examination. |