 As the field approached the year 2000, it began to renew old calls and issue new ones  to raise its internal standards in regards to ethics, competencies, and quality of work.While few felt that futurists--an occupational interest group at best--might become a full-fledged recognized profession via certification, the nine members of APF's founding board, including Peter Bishop, Jennifer Jarratt, Andy Hines, and Herb Rubenstein felt that foresight professionals should lead the global discussion about professional futures practice, encourage the use of futures and foresight in strategic decision making, and offer services, resources and training for foresight professionals to advance their skills and knowledge.The Association of Professional Futurists has 500 individual members from 40 countries, including authors and speakers, such as Clem Bezold, Sohail Inayatullah, Thomas Frey, Alexandra Levit, Richard Slaughter, and Amy Webb.