 It is based in Washington, D.C. and its current president is Michael Poliakoff.ACTA was founded in 1995 as the National Alumni Forum by former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Lynne V. Cheney, former Colorado governor Richard Lamm, then U.S.Senator and future University of Colorado at Boulder president Hank Brown, sociologist David Riesman, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, U.S.