During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gene Whaples served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Adult Education Association of the USA. When the organization merged with the National Association for Public Continuing and Adult Education to form Continuing Education, he served as one of the two Co-Presidents during the first year of the new organization. He, in part, was responsible for the successful development of the new association by helping to solve many of the difficult problems that were faced. He also was responsible for the development of the Cooperative Extension Service Unit of AAACE, helping to make it a strong part of the Association. The Lifelong Learning Conference was developed under his leadership. For a number of years, this conference provided many researchers an opportunity to interact with practitioners as they presented research findings and related their findings to everyday problems that adult educators faced. This was a unique approach and served as a model for other conferences that were developed around the country.