I would first like to thank all of those who have graciously volunteered their time through the years to support our OSSC organization and its mission of outreach and optical fellowship.  I would also like welcome back those who continue to volunteer their time and contribute to our shared OSSC vision for the 2023-2024 term.

Last year, OSSC President John Nunn guided the team and established three locations for monthly meetings, and our hope is to maintain our talks in these locations, perhaps moving them around to maintain convenience for our speakers.  Our three sections established by the team's effort are in the South Bay, Pasadena City College, and Orange County which had been hosted in Irvine (UCI or MKS).

We had our Summer Board and Programs planning meetings to prepare for the upcoming year in early August, and we are developing a solid schedule of speakers and OSSC activities.

Our mount Wilson Observatory tour on July 8 2023  was a great success.  We sold out our 20 slots and from the photographic evidence a great time was had by all.  It is my hope we can schedule more of these kinds of activities during the upcoming 2023-2024 term should scheduling and optimal viewing prevail.  Check out photos and other information from the event on the OSSC website here.  

We still have some open volunteer positions that could use your vision and support for this upcoming year.  We have long had a newsletter called IMAGES, that has been slowly migrating to our on-line forum.  I think there is still value in maintaining and indeed expanding this new letter, to help set the pace of OSSC involvement in our optical community and coordinate OSSC activities.

We have established working and viable hybrid talk process, and we have been successful at propagating word of our talks not only throughout California but also around the world.   We will need to find additional ways to encourage our online only participants to join our organization; members are currently given access to our recorded talk library and in some cases access to presentations provided by our speakers, and it is clear we will need to have better advertising to get our online-observers to become active members.

Our last talk was presented by the VP of OPTICA Jim Kafka on high intensity lasers.  We thank Jim for excellent and engaging talk.

I would also like to offer a challenge to our growing OSSC community.  I would like each of us to envision our future as an organization, perhaps be developing  an updated vision statement for OSSC’s upcoming term.    What can we do to encourage the formation of student chapters, or participation in out-reach for this upcoming year?   If you have some fun and engaging ideas feel free to drop me a email at presidente@OSSC.org.  Would offering table for OSSC/OPTIC student chapters work to build stronger student participation?

Donn Silberman has long led the charge on OSSC optical outreach, expanding our focus from classical optics to quantum optics.  I am hoping we can do more this upcoming year to encourage growth in the non-classical optics world perhaps have a non-classical optics trade show, poster session, or job fair in the growing area of interest to our optical industry and its users.

I look forward to an exciting new term.  Thanks in advanced for taking the time to read this, and contribute our shared vision.

Kevin Romero President 2023-24, Optical Society of Southern California