If there is a word that aptly explains Edward "Ned" Conlan's approach to officiating it would be "workmanlike." For more than 30 years, Ned plied his trade up and down the sidelines of collegiate and high school football fields with the precision and grace of a craftsman. A Head Linesman for most of his career, he earned a reputation as a steadying influence on any crew he worked, having the combination of experience, rules knowledge, and people skills that made him one of the top officials – and one of the most respected. Starting out with the Western Connecticut Football Officials Association in 1968, he worked his way up the ranks becoming a varsity official in that organization, and its president (1977). He moved to the New Haven Football Officials Association in 1978 and quickly fit in as one of its best members, working many top-flight contests. That same year he was admitted into membership in the Metro (New York) Chapter of the Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Football Officials. Once there began working up the ranks of the collegiate game, finally becoming a Division I officials. During that time he became a charter member of the Connecticut Chapter of the EAIFO in 1983, and its president in 1992. After the stint as president, he became the chapter's secretary, a post he held for five years. But it was on the field Ned was doing his best work. In 1989 he worked the Yale-Harvard game, and has four ECAC playoff assignments to his credit as well as two Division I-AA playoff games. Ned ended his on-field career in 2000, and was asked to become part of the ECAC's staff of observers and now works with the Colonial-Ivy-Patriot staff. His observing has been utilized by the NHFOA, as Ned is one of several retired officials who critique crews.