About
05 April 2011
OSA Foundation Completes Endowment Campaign for the Optical Society's Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Lyndsay Meyer
The Optical Society
+1.202.416.1435
lmeyer@osa.org
OSA Foundation Completes Endowment Campaign for the Optical Society’s
Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award
WASHINGTON, April 5—The OSA Foundation announced today that the endowment campaign for the Optical Society’s (OSA) Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award was successfully completed this year. The campaign began in 2007 after the OSA Engineering Excellence Award was renamed in memory of Forman, a pioneer in the field of optical engineering. The OSA Foundation raised enough funds to keep the award permanently endowed.
"The OSA Foundation is thrilled to complete the Forman Award endowment campaign," said G. Michael Morris, OSA Foundation chair. "We thank everyone who contributed to this important award. The generosity of the donors will help ensure leaders in optical engineering are recognized for their significant contributions, while also honoring Paul’s lifelong support of the field."
Forman, who passed away in 2007, received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Rochester in 1956. He later went on to complete the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School in 1969. In 1970 Forman co-founded Zygo Corporation with Carl Zanoni and Sol Laufer. Throughout his career Forman was the recipient of many awards, including OSA's Edwin H. Land Medal for pioneering entrepreneurial creativity that has had a major public impact, NASA’s Apollo Achievement Award for the retroreflector array used on the first lunar landing and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Precision Engineering. He was an active member of OSA for 52 years and served the society in several capacities, including two terms on the OSA Board of Directors, first as Science and Engineering Council chair in 1990-1991 and again as Director at Large from 1997-1999. He also organized one of OSA’s initial cultivation events, which in part lead to the creation of the OSA Foundation
"Paul was a major force in the engineering and scientific communities, and a tireless supporter of OSA for more than 50 years. I am pleased to have been a part of this campaign and to see that his memory will live on through this award," said Gary Bjorklund, past chair of the OSA Foundation, who helped establish the endowment campaign during his tenure.
Championing the development of the Engineering Excellence Award while chairing the OSA Science and Engineering Council, Forman was a voice for the optical engineering community. With his support, the Engineering Excellence Award was established in 1989 to increase the visibility of optical engineers. This annual award recognizes technical achievements in optical engineering by an individual or team. Nominations are solicited in: products, engineering publication, process, software, patents, engineering education, contributions to society, engineering management and furthering public appreciation of optical engineering. The award is presented each fall during the OSA Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics. The endowment of the award was made possible by the support of corporate and individual donors, including Zygo Corporation, Optical Research Associates, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc., Gary and Carolyn Bjorklund, Barbara Marks Forman and G. Michael Morris. More information on the award is available in the Awards and Grants section of the OSA website.
About the OSA Foundation
The OSA Foundation (OSAF) was established in 2002 to support philanthropic activities that help further the Optical Society's (OSA) mission by concentrating its efforts on programs that advance youth science education, provide optics and photonics education to underserved populations, provide career and professional development resources and support awards & honors that recognize technical and business excellence. The grants funded by the OSA Foundation are made possible by the generous donations of its supporters as well as the dollar-for-dollar match by OSA. The Foundation is exempt from U.S. federal income taxes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and is a public charity. To learn more about the OSA Foundation, please visit www.osa-foundation.org.
About OSA
Uniting more than 106,000 professionals from 134 countries, the Optical Society (OSA) brings together the global optics community through its programs and initiatives. Since 1916 OSA has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing educational resources to the scientists, engineers and business leaders who work in the field by promoting the science of light and the advanced technologies made possible by optics and photonics. OSA publications, events, technical groups and programs foster optics knowledge and scientific collaboration among all those with an interest in optics and photonics. For more information, visit www.osa.org.
###
