I’ve been reading about my ancestors from the Driggers side who were in Florida before it became a state in 1845. One such history book is called Gators, Skeeters, and Malary, by Judge E. C. May. The book reminds me about a joke about this elderly man who had lost most of his hearing. He finally decided to go see a specialist, who fitted him with state-of-the-art hearing aids. They worked great, and he could hear everything again. After a few weeks, the man came back to the doctor for a follow up visit, and the doctor noted that the hearing aids were working perfectly. He said, “Everything looks good, I’m glad your hearing has improved so much. Your family must be thrilled that you can hear again.” “Oh no,” the man answered, “I haven’t told any of them about the hearing aids. I just sit quietly, listening to everything they say. I’ve changed my will four times.” I wish I could tell you where that came from originally to give proper attribution, but I can tell you that I did not come up with it even though it cracks me up. I can laugh at this now that I have received an offer from AARP to become a member (I am still thinking about it).

Anyway, I want to talk about senior editors. In this case, senior is not a reference to age, but to experience, and I want to tell you about five new senior editors who have great experience and will continue to serve Optical Engineering. They are wonderful people who have been with Optical Engineering for a number of years and have already made a huge difference for the journal. First, Michael Eismann is the senior scientist for electro-optical and infrared sensors at the Sensors Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory. He will be covering the category “Imaging Components, Systems, and Processing.” The “Instrumentation, Techniques, and Measurements” category will be covered by Rajpal Sirohi, who is a former professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Groot Gregory, the LightTools product manager at Synopsis/Optical Research Associates, will cover the “Optical Design and Engineering” category. The “Lasers, Fiber Optics, and Communications” category will be covered by Richard Quimby, professor and director of the IPG Photonics Laboratory at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Finally, Patti Gillespie, the associate chief of the Electro-Optics and Photonics Division at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, will cover the “Materials, Photonic Devices, and Sensors” category.

In last month’s editorial,¹ I described the above categories along with the associated subcategories, and I explained how this modification to the Optical Engineering scope will allow better alignment with topics covered in SPIE conferences. The senior editors will oversee the paper review process, assist in recruiting papers and special sections in the categories, and address submission issues. We will continue to maintain the outstanding associate editors (AEs) on the editorial board, and we will add a few new AEs to cover the expanded scope and encourage participation in high-interest areas. I think this path will continue to provide good service to the Optical Engineering constituency, as well as align the journal more closely with subject areas featured at strong SPIE conferences. I cannot thank our editorial board enough, as they are very hardworking and continue to improve time to decision, accepted paper quality, and the journal overall.

So, Judge May considered himself one of the senior pioneers of Florida, and he settled in Citrus County just north of Tampa and not far from Cedar Key. He said that he moved to Florida when he was a young man. When he told one of his seniors he was moving to Florida, the senior said “Well, ye probably won’t git back. Them there bad men’ll kill ye, er the gaters’ll eat ye, er the skeeters’ll give ye malary and that’ll kill ye.” Back then, even though Texas was considered the Wild West, when someone from Texas was in trouble with the law, they would frequently flee to Florida. It makes me wonder what the Driggers were doing there so early.

Fig. 1