Dick Whitney (Executive Director of the Optical Heritage Museum in Southbridge) will examine the rich heritage of American Optical, from its founding in 1833 until today.  With a combination of museum photos and images from the Museum archives, the presentation will rely heavily on highlighting several key optical contributions. While it is most famous for its contributions to the Ophthalmic Industry, both Fiber Optics and Laser development began at AO as did Todd-AO wide screen movie projection.

Talk Video

Dick Whitney graduated from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1973, where he earned his BS degree in Astronomy. He started work with American Optical in their Central Testing laboratory in September of 1974 and recently celebrated his 46th year of continuous service (now Carl Zeiss Vision). Dick Chairs the Vision Council’s Lens Technical committee, a role he has held since 1997. Dick has been very active in ANSI and ISO standards work since 1991. He is Chair of ANSI Z80.1 spectacle lens committee. He was inducted to the Vision Council Hall of Fame in Sept. 2016

Dick is also the Executive Director of the Zeiss sponsored Optical Heritage Museum in Southbridge. The Museum was originally founded in 1983 to celebrate AO’s 150th Anniversary. Dick has worked to restart and grow the Museum for nearly 20 years, and thanks to Zeiss it reopened 7 years ago. It houses the largest collection of AO Historical Artifacts in the world. He is a longtime resident of Southbridge and is involved in a wide variety of community activities.