Paul Grace

Paul Grace was inducted into the College of Applied Human Sciences Hall of Fame in the fall of 2025. He was previously inducted into the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences Hall of Fame in 2010 and was named the CPASS Outstanding Alumnus in 2019.

Grace earned bachelor’s (1973) and master’s (1974) degrees in physical education from West Virginia University.

Beginning in 2001, he served as president and chief executive officer of the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy, the profession’s global credentialing organization. Earlier, he directed sports medicine for 13 years in the Department of Athletics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and held faculty and athletic training appointments with Massachusetts College of Art, St. Francis College, and Miami-Dade Junior College. In 1997, he was appointed certification program director for the Project Management Institute.

Grace held national leadership roles in certification and professional regulation. He chaired the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) Board of Certification (1980–89) and then became its first executive director (1989–2004). He represented the NATA Board of Certification to the National Organization for Competency Assurance (now the Institute for Credentialing Excellence) for 19 years, served as its president in 1993 and again in 2008, and chaired the National Commission for Certifying Agencies. He was appointed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982 to the state’s multidisciplinary licensing board for allied health.

His recognitions include induction into the NATA Hall of Fame and the Athletic Trainers’ Society of Massachusetts Hall of Fame, the NATA President’s Challenge Award, and the Jack Weakley College Athletic Trainers’ Society Award. In 2005, the NATA Board of Certification established the Paul Grace Leadership Award in his honor. Grace co-edited the first edition of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Athletic Training and Sports Medicine and has served on the CPASS Visiting Committee.