Invite Only Event.
MISSION & HISTORY
To advance the veterinary medical profession, promote animal health and well-being, and protect public health.
Our History
The Florida Veterinary Medical Association (FVMA) was founded in 1928, and is ranked third in size out of the veterinary medical associations in the United States. The association is proud to have experienced its infancy a few years after the establishment of the Florida Board of Veterinary Medicine, which was instituted by many of the same veterinarians who had created it.
With the increased establishment of veterinary schools across the U.S. after World War II, FVMA membership was 200 members in the 1940s, grew to 600 in 1986, and currently stands at 5,840 members and growing.
The FVMA was influential in establishing the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville. With the full support of every executive board and committee member, and the FVMA membership, the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine (UFCVM) became a reality in 1965, through the FVMA’s leadership and tireless legislative lobbying efforts. Further, the FVMA forged ahead to use its proven skills at legislative advocacy to lobby for Government funds for UFCVM that were appropriated in 1969-1970.
Naturally, the association has established a forever attachment to the College of Veterinary Medicine, and has remained active as it continues to offer support to the school. Today, the FVMA provides support and funds to the college through scholarships, student activities, graduations, coating ceremonies and donations to the college’s building fund.
The FVMA hired its first executive director in 1969, purchased a building to house the association headquarters in Orlando in 1977, and hired a professional full-time lobbyist in 1989, the same year the association paid off its mortgage. It incorporated the Florida Association of Equine Practitioners (FAEP) as the equine-exclusive division of the Association in March, 2011, and relocated to a new, larger association headquarters at 7207 Monetary Drive in Orlando in May, 2013.
