Enjoys hands on work and problem solving related to glass melting and forming processes. Worked in glass related field for twenty eight years having gained experience with many different forming processes and with a multitude of glass compositions. Initially worked on chalcogenide glasses and developed a fiberization process that produced core-clad low loss fibers. Moved onto redrawing and reshaping soda-lime, borosilicate and clear fused quartz tubing into precision glass components. Have a lot of experience in glass cutting, grinding & polishing, flame working, acid etching/cleaning/polishing and heat treatment of glasses. Developed processes for ultra high purity glass batching and melting used for fiber amplifier manufacturing. Innovated new forming processes for a broad range of silicate glasses and glass ceramics. Experience in down draw, updraw, hot glass extrusion, molding, pressing, tubular converting, rotational casting, fiber drawing and a few other glass forming techniques. Worked with induction heating for glass/glass ceramic melting and forming along with more standard glo-bar, moly disilicide and gas-oxy burners systems. All around experience in design/building furnaces, batching & melting glass/glass ceramics, design/building forming equipment, developing/innovating forming processes, compositional work, pretreatment of raw materials, post processing of glass, finishing and along the way treatment of a whole lot of burns and cuts.