From its founding, NCGS actively sought to provide its members with valuable professional development experiences, particularly in the areas of math and science. Driven by the finding in the CGBS study that many parents perceived girls' schools to be weak in math and science, Ann Pollina at Westover School (CT) who was Dean of Faculty and Chair of the Math Department at the time and math teacher Louise Gould at Ethel Walker School (CT) organized a Math and Science Symposium at Wellesley College in June 1991. These educators wanted to share their best practices with the general public and believed girls' schools were an ideal setting to help girls succeed and close the gender gap in STEM fields. The first three of many NCGS publications flowed from the successful Symposium: "The Executive Summary, Task Force Reports", and "The Complete Proceedings". NCGS received extensive media coverage from the release of these publications. Following the success of the first Symposium, NCGS hosted a "Girls in the Physical Sciences" "Symposium" in partnership with the Dudley Wright Center at Tufts University in Boston in 1993 and then a "Girls and Technology Conference" at Wellesley in 1995. NCGS received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create three publications highlighting the sessions and best practices exchanged at the 1995 conference. The success of these conferences led NCGS to take the "Girls and Technology Conference" to San Francisco in 1997 marking the Coalition's first-ever programming on the West Coast. These professional development opportunities and the publications that flowed from them helped establish NCGS as a thought-leader on STEM education for girls.