Grouper History from Ken Klingenstein (as of 2019)
A group management tool was part of the original thinking of RL Bob Morgan, of University of Washington, and others for the Internet2 Middleware Initiative. I recall group management being mentioned in the Fall 1999 Internet2 meeting in Seattle. That vision was temporarily parked as we began the federated identity development, which led to the InCommon Federation. Tom Barton, the primary architect and genius behind Grouper, entered the Internet2 sphere as an early adopter at University of Memphis, and began work on Grouper. . This would date the start of Grouper to the first NMI grant, circa fall 2000. For more on NMI, see http://www.nmi-edit.org/
Additional Notes
Tom Barton's leadership of Grouper continued as he moved to University of Chicago and then passed to Chris Hyzer, University of Pennsylvania