San Diego, CA--"After a day in the exhibit hall, it was like balm to the soul," said Courtney J. Pineau, SPIE promotion project manager, one of the photonics professionals who sailed off into the San Diego sunset Wednesday evening, August 4th aboard Aolani, a 58 foot Sunchaser American Catamaran. Organized and hosted by Laser Focus World, the dinner cruise took place during the SPIE Optics + Photonics conference held last week in San Diego.
"A lot of fun--met many interesting people and would love to do it again," said Tom Pallett, RPMC Lasers (O’Fallon, MO) regional sales manager. "San Diego is cool at night!" We assume that means "cool" as in "neat"; although it was a little cool towards the end of the evening as we passed under the Coronado Bay Bridge. Fortunately, the crew of Aolani had plenty of blankets available.
"It was great to have our customers in such a relaxing environment and discuss what they're seeing from a business perspective and what their expectations are for the next few months," said Christine Shaw, senior vice president and group publisher for PennWell's Technology Group, which includes Laser Focus World. "Everyone had a terrific time and we loved hearing what topics were on their minds."
"Aolani was a nice intimate setting with awesome food and multi-faceted, wonderful people from our industry," said Craig Goldberg, Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA) regional sales manager. "And next time, tequila," he added.
This year's SPIE Optics + Photonics again revealed the synergy among nanotechnology, solar, optics, photonics, and solid-state lighting and the core optical engineering necessary to design and deliver solutions. A special pavilion highlighted the use of photonics for everyday living, including a display of BMW and Toyota cars taking advantage of photovoltaic solar cooling and solid-state lighting advances, and One Million Lights offering solar-powered LED flashlights.
"Conference attendees and exhibitors love San Diego," said Peter Hallett, SPIE manager of industry relations, exhibitions, and sales. "On-site attendance was 4256, making this event one of the largest gatherings of interdisciplinary researchers and engineers in our field. The drop of 400 or so in attendance compared to last year is attributed to the Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation conference being separate from Optics + Photonics this year, but it hit its own record as a stand-alone event." For more information on SPIE's Optics + Photonics, go to http://spie.org/optics-photonics.xml.
