In folklore and fairy tales, magical seven-league boots that gain 21 miles per step are sometimes needed to vanquish massive opposition, accomplish great deeds, and do great good. In HRD, we have spent decades struggling, by all means we could find and in innumerable contexts, to promote formal and informal human learning and understanding. Instrumental to reaching this end, we have sought to raise the profile of our profession both locally and globally. Looking back, we are amazed at how many long steps we have taken, how many thousands of leagues we have covered in every direction-as a proactive, interdisciplinary enterprise. Looking forward, we observe that we are still far from where we want to be, having slain some but certainly not all of the dragons that stand against our effectiveness.
Though there are uncountable miles to stride, in order to acquaint ourselves more fully with the width, depth, breadth, and best of what we might undertake, we are rightfully proud of what we have already done. Consider the state of affairs 30 years ago when, as practitioners and researchers, we faced the entrenched assumption that we brought to organizations only a limited range of HRD capabilities. Regardless of our professional preparation, many of us were expected to be training handymen (i.e., in-house order-takers and caterers, HR bench sitters, and little else), and were therefore considered disposable in times of financial pinch. In academic settings, we were asked to teach courses related to HRD that were tacked onto or enveloped by programs about something else, so that lecturers and professors with comprehensive knowledge of HRD were easily marginalizedalmost by virtue of their having unexpected and unsought expertise. In cases of either sort, we reached for colleagues to take collective action for mutual support. HRD professional associations have emerged to help us deal with policy considerations and expansion of our influence. However, to the extent that we are not yet perceived as a "real profession," a durable powerhouse for helping obtain sustainable futures for people and their institutions, we have not yet "come of age."
The lack of professional publications was one of our early obstacles, and one of the many giants we have slain. Establishing HRDQ as an indexed