Blog in Transition

As some of you know I've gone through a few career-related changes over the past year. After seventeen years the ICT Center was sunset by the National Science Foundation. Seventeen years is a long time for anything to be funded by the NSF and I'd like to thank everyone involved - there are so many - from all over the United States. It was so much fun to do the work we did at the historical time we did it. We positively influenced tens-of-thousands of lives in our country - our legacy - and that is pretty cool.

On Sept 5, after a lot of contemplation, I early-retired from a tenured faculty position (basically a job for life) in Massachusetts and with that, many are convinced I have truly lost my mind :) 

Seriously, the time seemed right for me to do something a little different while I was still young and nimble enough! The opportunity was there and I accepted a four-day-a-week position as an Associate Director of the National Center for Optics and Photonics Education (www.op-tec.org).  OP-TEC is another NSF Advanced Technological Education center of excellence located in Waco, TX and funded via the University of Central Florida. I get to Waco once a month for four days. I'm also doing a little bit of evaluation work with NSF funded projects around the country

Hmmmmm, optics and photonics you may ask? "What the heck is that? I thought you were some kind of communications guy??" Well...... when I first started teaching (30 years ago) I taught both geometric optics and wave optics for a number of years. In fact, the faculty position I just retired from included seniority in the laser electro-optics department. It's been great to dig in to some familiar content and dust off my old notes again. I've also had to dust off some brain cells and that is always a good thing. I'm seeing lots of intersections and opportunities with optics, lasers and computers. Hmmmmm

So..... what's up with this blog? I'm feeling settled in now and am ready to start writing again. I'll be writing about many of the same emerging technology topics as the past and a bunch of new topics. I'm expanding horizons, learning new stuff, making mistakes as I learn, and learning from those mistakes. Not ready to spend my time fishing and golfing - I'm actually pretty good at fishing but really stink at golf :) At least not yet. 

Thanks to everyone who has followed me here in the past. You thought you got rid of me but - I'm back :)