Richard L. Prendergast Lifetime Achievement Award

The NRAAO Awards Committee recommended to the Board of Directors of NRAAO at its executive board meeting in October, 2004 at Springfield, Massachusetts that there be an award given by the NRAAO, to one member for their life-time commitment to the assessing profession.

At the NRAAO executive board meeting at Uncasville, Connecticut in April, 2005 the NRAAO Executive Board recommended that such award be known as the “Richard L. Prendergast Life-time Achievement Award” for outstanding service to the assessment profession and in honor and memory of Richard (Dick) Prendergast’s creation of NRAAO and his untiring efforts to assist assessors throughout the entire country and in particular the northeast.

Dick Prendergast was born and raised an Irish brat in the west end of Hartford, CT where he learned the ultimate finesse of street smarts and the real world of city politics. After attending Hartford High School, Dick went into the service as a Marine, having a distinguished career serving our country in Korea where he made many close friends including Ted Williams and Gerry Coleman…so the reason he became a Boston fan. Rumor has it that Dick developed the term “Luck of the Irish” after a NRAAO meeting in Boston.

His assessment career started in the City of Hartford, CT followed by some time in the East Hartford office and then as Assessor in South Windsor. After a while Dick moved on to the State Tax Department where he supervised what was known as the Board of Assessment Advisors. Dick was the catalyst for standardizing uniform assessment tax policy, he was part of the discussion on uniform revaluation cycles, helped streamline the practice of assessing personal property and motor vehicles as well as stimulated discussion in establishing the education process of credit hours for all of Connecticut’s assessors. He was considered a walking assessment dictionary, knowing Section 12 of the Connecticut general statutes by rote.

Dick served as President of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers (CAAO) for 1965 and 1966 and went on to become passionately involved with the NRAAO, serving as the first NRAAO President in 1965. With regional colleagues of Shawdry, Day, Kirwin and McCabe, Dick felt the NRAAO was the professional vehicle that could easily educate and help certify regional assessors with a high degree of integrity and at a very cost effective fee.

The Richard L. Prendergast Life-Time Achievement Award was discussed and accepted by the NRAAO Board at the 2005 Connecticut conference with the first presentation being given in Uncasville, Connecticut that same year.