For more than two hundred years, the twenty-one California Missions have helped to shape California state history. While the Missions are a major California tourist attraction and are sometimes compared to the cathedrals of Europe, many Missions are struggling to maintain and preserve the buildings, grounds, artworks, and historical objects in their care.

Mervyn's Department Store, which went out of business during the 2008 recession, sponsored the original An Uncommon Mission as part of its corporate commitment to raise public awareness about the conservation and preservation needs of the California Missions. Mervyn's hired Think Jacobson and Roth to create the traveling exhibit, which visited four Californian cities between 1999 and 2001. In June, 2001, Father Jerome Tupa's Mission paintings were on exhibit at the Los Angeles County Library in the Getty Gallery.

An uncommon collaboration
Recognizing the value of the exhibit, Think Jacobson and Roth approached AT&T Knowledge Network Explorer on behalf of Mervyn's and discussions began on the possibility of porting the existing materials over to a web-based format. In October, 2000, members of the AT&T Education First team met with Think Jacobson and Roth and The Wright Group for further discussion.

February, 2001, AT&T hired Suzanne Bacon, a graduate student from San Diego State University's Department of Educational Technology, to organize the project and design the website. And so, the online version of An Uncommon Mission was born.

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