Madison Cole earned his M.S. degree from Northern Illinois University in 1997 in Electrical Engineering with a double emphasis in Digital Control Systems and Digital Signal Processing. He also holds a B.S. degree, earned in 1993, in Electrical Engineering also from Northern Illinois University. Previous to MZA, he worked for Boeing-SVS in Albuquerque, NM for over 12 years as an Associate Technical Fellow, where he led simulation and modeling efforts for various DoD directed energy systems. He was a key contributor to the Air Borne Laser program, and author of many of the Fire Control algorithms used in the ABL primary missions. Over the course of his tenure at Boeing his teams developed simulation architecture tools that were subsequently leveraged by multiple programs from small tactical systems to multi-billion dollar weapon systems. Prior to SVS, he was employed at Reed-Chatwood in Rockford, IL where he was successful in converting their multi-million dollar line of textile capital equipment to PC and PLC control.

Matthew Heino holds degrees in physics from Kent State University and Western Illinois University. He has worked in electro-optical engineering and science for 12 years with Lawrence Livermore national lab, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. He is an experienced horseman in the natural style, and volunteers at Walking in Circles Ranch rehabilitating abused and neglected horses. What's left of his time is used in astronomy, mostly astrophotography and satellite tracking, or searching for asteroids and comets.

Gideon Robertson earned his B.S. degree from New Mexico State University in Electrical Engineering in 2003 and his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2007 from the University of New Mexico. His graduate studies were focused on solid-state physics while his thesis involved modeling physical phenomena seen in unique devices fabricated in Sandia’s CMOS process. Gideon comes to MZA from Sandia National Laboratories where he primarily designed embedded systems, mixed-signal discrete electronics, FPGAs, and more recently, mixed-signal ASICs.

A bio for Cammie will follow shortly.

The new MZA website went live today. Please send any comments regarding the design and/or functionality to Laura Korte (ABQ). Employees can submit bug reports via Mantis.

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Ms. Cathy McGinnis – Contracts Manager to the MZA professional staff. Cathy is a native Albuquerquean who recently finished her Masters of Government Contract Management from George Washington University. She also holds a B.A. Degree in Business Management from UNM and an Associates Degree in accounting. Cathy has worked in Government contracting and finance for over 18 years with her major customers being AFRL, Sandia, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Cathy has worked for large DOD contractors such as ATK Mission Research Corp, SAIC, and Honeywell. Her expertise is in proposal preparation, risk assessment and complex contract negotiations. She has managed $110M 5 year IDIQ Task Order contracts to include 50 active subcontracts under individual Task Orders.

David Goorskey has a Ph.D. (2005) in MicroElectronics/Photonics and a M.S. degree (2003) in Applied Physics from the University of Arkansas, and a B.S. degree (1996) in Math/Physics from King College, Bristol, TN. For his M.S. Thesis, he studied the nonlinear optics and quantum coherence phenomena (such as electromagnetically induced transparence or EIT) of atomic vapors (such as Rb) in optical cavities. His Ph.D. research focused on the electrical and optical properties of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (also called quantum dots). After completing his Ph.D. work, he worked for three years at Nanomaterials and Nanofabrication Laboratories (NN-Labs) in Fayetteville, AR. His work there concentrated on developing novel electro-optic devices using quantum dots. In particular, he worked on developing CdTe quantum dot solar cells and photo-detectors as well as utilizing a new type of quantum dot (Mn doped ZnSe) as nanophosphors for improving white light emitting diodes (LEDs). He is the author of over 12 peer reviewed publications and has been awarded two SBIR Phase I grants and one Phase II grants.

Marcus Gualtieri was recently awarded his B.S. in Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology (May 2008). He finished school working on an office presentation tool called Panther Present, which was programmed on top of the Mozilla Platform. He has already acquired experience writing software in the Wright-Patt area, particularly, at AFRL's Major Shared Resource Center and later at an AFIT optics lab. Over his short professional career he has most commonly written code in Java, C++, Matlab, and C#. Marcus enjoys playing acoustic guitar and can be bribed with chocolate chip cookies.

MZA Dayton has moved to a new office space as of April 1. We are now located at the intersection of Research Blvd and Technology Ct...hence the motto. This location is just minutes from the R&D centers at Wright Patterson AFB, including the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). We are also a short drive from the University of Dayton's Laser Radar and Optical Communications Institute (LOCI). The new facility provides 6,300 sq. ft of space for offices, conference rooms, optics laboratory, and computing labs. The new optics lab allows us to significantly increase our adaptive optics testing capabilities. While the new conference facility located on-site has room for hosting meetings with up to 40 participants.

The new address, directions with map, and contact information are now available.

The Dayton office now hosts an optics laboratory for testing promising AO technologies. The laboratory hardware includes laser sources, spatial light modulators, optical components, polymer deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, scoring cameras, and support electronics for proving AO beam control approaches previously simulated using WaveTrain. Our current tests focus on compensation of aero-optical disturbances on aircraft-based lasers using advanced control approaches for directed energy and laser communication applications. MZA recently added 2 new staff members for Dayton laboratory operations, both graduates of the University of Dayton’s Electro-Optics graduate program.

Richard Drye holds B.S.E.E. (2002, U.D.) and M.S. Electro-Optics (2005, U.D.) degrees with a background in optics, infrared measurements, control systems, MATLAB modeling and graphical-user-interface (GUI) development. As a research engineer at Mission Research, Richard was a major contributor of analysis tools and GUI’s for MATLAB toolboxes such as SCALE and SHaRE, and ABLPAT (AirBorne Laser Performance and Analysis Toolkit), providing a highly-integrated and comprehensive engagement modeling capability for ABL. Richard’s work experience includes a position in ATK’s Infrared Measurements Group where he developed/tested infrared targets and made detailed emissivity measurements. He also assembled a system to control an IR environmental chamber for emissivity/reflectivity measurements and programmed the laboratory control logic.

Jeff Widiker's professional degrees include: B.S. Engineering Physics (2001, University of Wisconsin-Platteville) and M.S. Electro-Optics (2004, U.D.). As a co-op student in the Sensors Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/SN), Jeff developed a novel design method for a high-speed 2-D Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor operating at 1 MHz frame rate, and utilized it to perform simultaneous wave-front and flow diagnostics to study aero-optical effects. At AFRL, Jeff also worked with liquid-crystal based spatial light modulators (SLMs), using them for wave-front manipulation. Jeff continued his work with SLM technology at ATK Mission Research, refining SLM calibration techniques to simulate atmospheric turbulence and other wave-front aberrations in a laboratory setting. Jeff also served as the optical hardware lead for the combined (RF/EO) aperture program for the Optical Signatures and Sensors group.

In March 2007, MZA began distributing WaveTrain 2007a, the latest release of MZA’s wave-optics modeling system. WaveTrain 2007a incorporates many significant improvements and enhancements including:

• Compatibility with the Visual C++ .NET Express, the free version of Microsoft's compiler. This means that you no longer have to purchase a compiler to run WaveTrain.
• Compatibility with the latest versions of Matlab, although Matlab is not necessarily required to run WaveTrain. Partial compatibility with Octave, the freeware Matlab look-alike.
• Significantly expanded set of WaveTrain Systems (blocks) and improved System library management capabilities.
• Significantly improved documentation.
• New Matlab tools for visualizing WaveTrain outputs.
• A new version of TurbTool, the Matlab tool for configuring atmospheric components.
• Numerous new features, bug fixes, and usability improvements.

WaveTrain is available free-of-charge to contractors and government personnel working on U.S. government projects. MZA charges license fees for commercial use and offers a variety of paid support products for both government and commercial users. To obtain WaveTrain 2007, e-mail your complete contact information to the wavetrain email address If you are a government contractor, include the contract number and technical point of contact. Also, don't forget to join the WaveTrain forum.

MZA Forums, a moderated site for discussions on topics relevant to the MZA community is now available. Currently, there are forums covering such topics as WaveTrain, tempus, AOS, and MZA systems. This is a Beta version. Please feel free to give feedback -- good and/or bad. Email your comments to forumadmin@mza.com.

With the leadership of senior staffer Dr. Justin Mansell, MZA has spun-off Active Optical Systems, or AOS, to fabricate and market low cost adaptive optics systems. Detailed information on the company and its activities can be seen at http://www.activeopticalsystems.com/.

It is a pleasure to announce that Dr. Donald J. Link has joined our MZA operations in Jupiter, Florida. Dr. Link has 23 years experience in atmospheric turbulence and adaptive optics. His main emphasis has been on writing and using detailed time-domain, wave optics simulations of adaptive optical systems for correction of atmospheric turbulence and resonator aberrations. He also has experience in phased array and interferometric optical systems.

From 1992 to the present, Dr. Link served as a senior scientist at Science Applications International Corporation. He is the principal author of the Atmospheric Compensation Simulation (ACS). ACS has been the benchmark against which other wave optics codes including WaveTrain were originally measured. Dr. Link?s work consisted primarily of identifying significant physics and engineering effects, developing algorithms and modifying the code to include those effects in ACS, validating the modifications against theory and experimental results, running ACS to determine the impact of the effects, developing system hardware or software solutions to any problems introduced by the effects, incorporating these solutions in ACS, and using ACS to optimize the solutions by parameter variation and/or algorithm modification. His research includes multi-conjugate adaptive optics, optimal estimators, complex reconstructors, adaptive reconstructors, and stochastic optimization. Programs he has worked on include the Air Force airborne and space based high energy laser systems for theater and national missile defense, the Army tactical high energy laser system, ground based laser systems such as the Star-Fire Optical Range 3.5 meter and the Maui AEOS 3.6 meter telescopes, and long baseline imaging interferometers.

Dr. Link earned his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering (Electro-Optics program) in 1985 and his M.S. in Applied Mathematics in 1983 from the University of Central Florida. He also has a B.S. in Math and Physics from the U.S. Naval Academy (1977). While serving in the Navy LCDR Link was a submarine officer on a fast attack submarine.

As of June 1st, Mr. Russell Vernon and Drs. Richard St. John and Aaron Masino have joined MZA and initiated operations in Jupiter, Florida. Location and contact information can be found on MZA's web pages.

Mr. Russell Vernon has been named Vice President of Jupiter Operations and will provide the primary leadership and management of the Jupiter staff. Mr. Vernon has 38 years experience in optical systems research and management. His technical experience includes system requirements analysis and design of high energy laser (HEL) beam control systems, atmospheric propagation, imaging, adaptive optics, radiometry, active optical controls, laser communications, modeling, computer simulation, analysis, test planning and testing. Since 1991, Mr. Vernon served as Vice President and manager of the Space Optics and Imaging Operation of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) where he grew a business base in imaging and laser projection systems from less than $1M to over $15M per year and provided leadership for up to fifty optical systems engineers and scientists. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Physics with Honors from the University of Louisville in 1969. MZA plans to draw on his significant management, technical, and marketing expertise to expand its business base, better accommodate the needs of its current clients, and establish a greater presence within the advanced optics industry.

Dr. Richard St. John has nine years experience in optical systems research, analysis and design, atmospheric HEL propagation, imaging, adaptive optics, computer simulation and modeling. Dr. St. John has performed numerous wave-optics analysis of atmospheric propagation and adaptive optics systems and was the primary author of HELCOMES, a Java-based HEL propagation scaling code which consolidates years of scaling law research and has become the standard analysis tool for a number of DoD HEL research organizations. He earned Doctorate and Master of Science degrees in Applied and Computational Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Old Dominion University.

Dr. Aaron Masino has three years industry experience in adaptive optics modeling and simulation, parameter trade studies, and algorithm development. He has developed and tested various beam control algorithms for adaptive optics systems and conducted numerous large-simulation-based parameter trade studies. While an Air Force officer he gained five years experience in technical program management, training, and performance requirement evaluation. He earned his Doctorate of Applied Mathematics from the University of Central Florida in 2004. He also has a Master of Aerospace Engineering degree from the University of Colorado and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Rutgers University.

The significant talent provided by the Jupiter staff will allow MZA to more thoroughly meet the needs of the advanced optics community including the expertise gained using the ACS wave-optics code and HELCOMES, the HEL JTO-sponsored scaling code.

For the seventh year in a row, MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the 2007 Flying 40.

As of Dec. 31, 2006, the time keys for most WaveTrain users will expire. This means the GUI will refuse to save new systems until the time key is updated. Navigate to the WaveTrain Downloads page to obtain a new time key. (no longer available - June 11, 2008)

MZA was incorporated in October 1991 to meet a need for advanced simulation and analysis of adaptive optics systems at what is now the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Because of the ongoing reduction in SDI-related research, the business climate called for a leaner approach to providing such support and created an opportunity for the formation of MZA. In December of 1992, MZA was awarded a four-year, three-million dollar simulation and analysis support contract (AMASS).

The company has been growing and thriving ever since. In the past 15 years, MZA played a key role in the completion of AFRL's landmark ABLEX and ABLE ACE high-altitude atmospheric characterization experiments. We developed data acquisition and optical systems to help build the ABL-ACT facilities on White Sands Missile Range and provided significant simulation and data analysis for the subsequent experiments. We wrote WaveTrain and distributed it to more than one hundred organizations, significantly increasing the number of scientists that perform wave-optics analysis of advanced optical systems.

For the past six years, MZA has played a major role in the performance prediction and assessment of the Airborne Laser (ABL) for the ABL SPO. Concurrently, we invented, built, and patented the Adaptive Dynamic Range Wave Front Sensor (ADRWFS). We are also proud of the fact that MZA has been named to the New Mexico Technology Flying Forty for these last six years running.

We continue to provide simulation and analysis to AFRL for ABL, tactical, relays, and ground-based optical systems. MZA's ABL WaveTrain-based wave-optics model is currently being used to predict and analyze the performance of the ABL which is currently undergoing early flight tests of its beam control system. In 2005, we established our Dayton, Ohio office and inherited an impressive legacy of scaling codes. We also created a subsidiary, Active Optical Systems (AOS), which manufactures low-cost, compact adaptive optics hardware. On-going projects include R&D in the areas of optical propagation in the marine environment, wave-optics modeling of laser resonators, adaptive reconstructors for the compensation of aero-optical effects, laser weapon lethality, complex synthetic scene generation, relay mirrors, and isomorphic modeling of complex systems.

MZA has posted the presentation materials for the half-day introductory course on the theory and application of tempus that Bob Praus presented at the Directed Energy Professional Society's Directed Energy System Symposium March 20-24 in Monterey, CA. tempus is MZA's interdisciplinary simulation executive upon which many of the capabilities of WaveTrain are built.

October 2006 marks the 1st anniversary of MZA's Dayton, OH location. The past year has been busy for MZA -- establishing the new office, expanding our business to new Wright-Patterson customers, and simultaneously, supporting on-going projects in Albuquerque and other locations.

The Dayton staff members: Rebecca Beauchamp, John Diemunsch, Eric Magee, Amy Ngwele, Joe Riley, and Matt Whiteley.

The Air Force Institute of Technology is offering a graduate course called 'Wave Optics II' (OENG 646) which focuses on the application of WaveTrain for wave-optics simulation of propagation, imaging and adaptive optics beam control. The course was first offered during summer quarter 2005 and is now part of the academic sequence for Electro-optics Engineering. This year's enrollment consists of military and civilian graduate students at the M.S. and Ph.D. level. The course is being taught by Dr. Matt Whiteley (MZA Dayton). A related course called 'Imaging through Turbulence' (EENG 716) is being taught during summer quarter 2006 by Dr. Eric Magee (MZA Dayton). Students in this course learn the theory associated with wave propagation and imaging in random media. Dr. Whiteley and Dr. Magee are adjunct professors in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (AFIT/ENG).

For the sixth year in a row, MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the 2006 Flying 40.

MZA is proud to announce the addition of Dr. Don Washburn to the MZA staff. For the past fifteen years at AFRL, Dr. Washburn has been the driving force behind a series of important directed energy research projects including ABLE ACE, ABL advanced concepts and range extension, and high altitude and tactical relays. He also chaired the HEL JTO Beam Control Technical Advisory Working Group that provided recommendations to JTO management on investments in beam control technology.

After graduating from the Air Force Academy, he began his career as an Air Force Operational Pilot, where he eventually became qualified to command eight different aircraft including the F-100 and B-52. He was a Forward Air Controller and Combat Instructor in Vietnam, earning 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 18 Air Medals, and an Army Commendation Medal. He later returned to the Academy to teach math and physics courses. In the early eighties he was stationed at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory (a predecessor to AFRL) to serve as the Chief of the Advanced Beam Control Branch.

After retiring from active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel, he worked for Logicon/RDA as a Division Manager overseeing beam control and directed energy simulation projects. He returned to government service as an IPA in 1991 where he provided managerial and technical leadership in the conduct of leading edge directed energy research. Dr. Washburn has a B.S. in Engineering Science from the Air Force Academy, M.S. in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from Purdue, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA. Dr. Washburn's first assignment will be as program manager of the MZA ABL modeling and simulation efforts.

New Mexico State University awarded a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering to Tony Seward following completion and defense of his dissertation, "Image Plane Filters and Adaptive Optical Systems". His research details alternative methods of wave front sensing and control for adaptive optics.

Dr. Seward has been an MZA employee for more than six years. For most of that time, he has provided optical engineering support to the AFRL North Oscura Peak and Starfire Optical Range facilities. Dr. Seward is the fourth employee to complete his Ph.D. while working at MZA.

Bob Praus will present a half-day introductory course on the theory and application of tempus at the Directed Energy Professional Society's upcoming Directed Energy System Symposium March 20-24 in Monterey, CA. tempus is MZA's interdisciplinary simulation executive upon which many of the capabilities of WaveTrain are built. A description of the course can be found at the DEPS website.

As of Dec. 31, 2005, the time keys for most WaveTrain users will expire. This means the GUI will refuse to save new systems until the time key is updated. Navigate to the WaveTrain Downloads page to obtain a new time key. (no longer available)

Dr. Russ Butts, a Senior Scientist at MZA, was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) by its Board of Directors at the October 18, 2005 meeting in Tucson, Arizona. The Society's announcement says he is "being recognized for outstanding contributions to the advancement of High Energy Laser beam control in adaptive optics, tracking and pointing, and in understanding the science of laser propagation in the atmosphere."

This is the latest well-deserved honor Dr. Butts has received. In 2001, the Secretary of Defense awarded Dr. Butts the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the highest award given to career Defense employees, and in 2003, Dr. Butts' contributions to the field led to his selection as a Fellow of the Directed Energy Professional Society. These awards are the results of Dr. Butts' nearly thirty years of service to our country as an Air Force officer and civil servant at the Air Force Research Laboratory and its predecessors.

MZA established its Dayton-area office in the suburb of Centerville. Location and contact information can be found on MZA's web pages. In addition to Drs. Whiteley and Magee, the Dayton office has added three new staff members.

Ms. Rebecca (Becky) Beauchamp has used WaveTrain to perform simulation and analysis of adaptive optics and atmospheric propagation systems for two years. She earned a Master's degree in Physics from Ohio State University in Columbus, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics from Mount Holyoke College.

Mrs. Amy Ngwele has two years experience with anchoring wave-optics results from WaveTrain to adaptive optics system performance scaling codes. She is a contributing author to the Matlab-based scaling codes ATMTools, EngagementTools, SHaRE, and SCALE. Mrs. Ngwele earned a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in Optics from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics from King College in Bristol, Tennessee.

Mr. Joe Riley has performed simulation and analysis of complex optical systems for more than eight years. He is an expert WaveTrain user who has provided significant support to advanced tracking and adaptive optics systems. He also has extensive experience in the area of synthetic scene generation for both passive and active applications. Mr. Riley earned an M.S. in Electro-Optics from the University of Dayton and a B.S. in Physics from Notre Dame.

As of the first of October, Drs. Matthew Whiteley and Eric Magee have joined MZA and initiated operations in the Dayton area. Plans are to open a permanent office in the next few weeks. MZA's new office can call upon a significant pool of Dayton-area talent and has more direct access to the Wright Patterson Air Force Base system acquisition centers, AFRL Sensors Directorate, the AFIT Center for Directed Energy (CDE), and the University of Dayton Electro-Optics program.

Dr. Whiteley has been named Vice President of the Dayton office. As a Senior Research Scientist and Group Leader for Alliant Techsystems Mission Research Corporation (ATK MRC), Dr. Whiteley was very successful in building a staff of adaptive optics and atmospheric propagation experts. His group provided analysis, scaling code, and wave optics modeling to a variety of AFRL, Airborne Laser (ABL), and other directed energy projects. Prior to joining ATK MRC, he was a Captain in the USAF serving as the Principal Investigator for the AFRL Dynamic Compensation Experiment (DyCE) performed at the North Oscura Peak (NOP) facility on White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). Dr. Whiteley has a Ph.D. and M.S. in Physics from AFIT and a B.S. in Physics from Carnegie Mellon.

Dr. Magee, now a Senior Scientist at MZA, was a Senior Research Engineer at ATK MRC. He helped to devise a new phase screen generation method that allows phase screens to be extruded for arbitrary lengths. He applied that technique to help develop a liquid crystal device which simulates atmospheric turbulence in laboratory experiments. He is also a lead author of the ATMTools Matlab library which provides comprehensive geometric and Rytov calculations. Prior to ATK, Dr. Magee was a USAF Major where he was on the AFIT faculty as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. Dr. Magee has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, an MSEE from AFIT, and a BS in Engineering from Grove City College.

Colombe Leland, or Mimi as everyone calls her, has joined the MZA staff as Assistant to the Controller. Mimi has Bachelor's degrees in both Technical Communications and Business Administration. She is fast becoming responsible for executing many administrative and accounting tasks including timesheet accounting and accounts payable, as well as, helping with technical report writing and enhancing our website. In the past, she served as Business Manager of the Philanthropy Department of All Faiths Receiving Home and as Computer Literacy Specialist for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, both worthy and important charitable organizations. Before coming to Albuquerque, she applied her writing skills as Editor and Technical Writer for a number of years at New Mexico Tech. in Socorro.

For the fifth year in a row, MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the 2004 Flying 40.

A new version of the GUI can be downloaded from the WaveTrain Downloads page. There are not many changes to the GUI. The most significant is that you can turn off warning messages in the Hierarchy and System Status windows after viewing them. This way, you can cause the status bulbs to turn green after you have determined that the warnings are not detrimental to your application. There is additional flexibility in customizing the operation of the tve and miscellaneous bug and nuisance fixes.

MZA is proud to announce the addition of Dr. R. Russell Butts to its Technical Staff. Dr. Butts is a world-renowned expert in the area of directed energy weapons systems, with specific emphasis in atmospheric propagation and compensation. He has given nearly thirty years of service to our country as an Air Force officer and civil servant at the Air Force Research Laboratory and it's predecessors. In 2001, the Secretary of Defense awarded Dr. Butts the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the highest award given to career Defense employees.

During a break from civil service, he supported directed energy research as an analyst and department manager at Logicon/RDA where he mentored Steve Coy and Bob Praus, the principals of MZA. He also taught Mathematics at North Texas State and Mississippi State Universities. He's earned B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics and has significant additional course work and training in Physics and Engineering. In 2003, Dr. Butts' contributions to the field led to his selection as a Fellow of the Directed Energy Professional Society. He is author or co-author of more than 65 technical publications, most of which are detailed reports and many of which cover ground-breaking research in the areas of atmospheric propagation and compensation. Dr. Butts will provide senior review and direction to nearly all MZA's directed energy projects. For the past fifteen years he has played an important role in the leadership of others. He now wishes to rekindle his detailed participation in simulation and modeling, so he'll be deeply involved in technical work.

Bob Praus of MZA, Justin Libersky of Zia Consortium, and Susan Kocina of Virtual Intelligence Applications will appear Sunday morning, April 17, on Albuquerque-based radio station 770 KKOB's Hi-Tech New Mexico show hosted by Mike Langner. The topic of discussion is a collective effort to create a New Mexico-based small business consortium to provide government organizations efficient solutions to high technology problems. The show will air from 10 to 11 AM MDT. The consortium has recently had its first success in being awarded a contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for modeling and optimization of solid state laser systems.

MZA has been mentioned in a couple of news articles related to recently-awarded contracts. MZA is a subcontractor on a LADERA contract let by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to perform Solid State Laser System Modeling and Optimization. Also, MZA is a teammate on Northrop Grumman Information Technology's successful bid for the Airborne Laser (ABL) A&AS contract awarded by the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

MZA staff members participated heavily in the Directed Energy Professional Society's (DEPS) Third Directed Energy Modeling and Simulation Conference in Tampa, Florida. On March 14, Bob Praus presented a half-day short course on "Modeling and Simulation using WaveTrain". The course was based on the WaveTrain tutorial augmented with introductory and foundational materials from an earlier short course that MZA has given. Justin Mansell presented a briefing titled "Experimental Beam Control using WaveTrain" which documents an on-going project where we have successfully used WaveTrain to simultaneously model and control an adaptive optics experiment. Steve Coy extended the propagation sampling requirements analysis on which he has been working and presented a talk called "Choosing Mesh Spacings and Mesh Dimensions for Wave Optics Simulation". Bob Praus presented talks on on-going MZA work, "Recent Progress in Airborne Laser System Performance Model Anchoring" and "Solid State Laser System Modeling and Optimization". We'll add the releasable materials to our WaveTrain and publication pages once they are properly formatted.

On March 14, 2005, Bob Praus will present a half-day short course on "Modeling and Simulation using WaveTrain" at the Directed Energy Professional Society's (DEPS) 2005 Directed Energy Modeling and Simulation Conference in Tampa, Florida. This course will provide a practical introduction to the use of WaveTrain, emphasizing the details of the process of using WaveTrain to model beam control and imaging systems. This course will be distinct from the full-day course we provided at DEPS last October in that it will cover less theory and more applied usage details. MZA will also be presenting a number of modeling and simulation briefings during the main conference sessions.

Briefing materials for a short course on "Modeling and Simulation of Beam Control Systems" and a significantly improved version of the WaveTrain Tutorial have been posted to the WaveTrain page. Check them out for further insight to the inner and outer workings of WaveTrain.

To keep a current inventory of WaveTrain use, we place a time key in our WaveTrain distribution files. Most current users have received a time key which expires at the end of 2004. Users with expired time keys will not be able to save models in the WaveTrain GUI. We've sent out new time keys updated for 2005 to many active users. If you are an active user and you haven't received an updated key, contact us and we'll send you one.

On October 18, 2004 MZA presented a short course on Modeling and Simulation of Beam Control Systems at the Directed Energy Professional Society's (DEPS) Seventh Annual Directed Energy Symposium in Rockville, Maryland. Sixteen people attended the course and we received largely positive feedback on the presentation. The course covered a broad range of foundational, numerical, and practical aspects of constructing and analyzing computer simulations of Beam Control Systems (BCS). Of particular interest to wave optics simulationists is a rigorous development of sampling requirements in Parts 2 and 3. The short course materials can be viewed or downloaded here.

MZA distributes the WaveTrain software free of charge to all requesting organizations who have a bona fide SBIR contract. The current DoD SBIR solicitation includes a number of Phase I topics that would benefit from simulation and analysis with WaveTrain. To make it more practical for Phase I SBIR bidders to propose using WaveTrain with MZA's support, we have devised a support plan customized to Phase I SBIR projects. WaveTrain users can now obtain WaveTrain support from MZA for the purpose of carrying out a Phase I SBIR contract at a cost more consistent with a contract the size of a Phase I SBIR. Contact MZA to get the details of the plan in time to submit your Phase I SBIR proposal.

The intersection of Girard Blvd. with Gibson Blvd. is now open. Visitors to MZA no longer have to wind their way through the neighborhood to the north to get to MZA.

On October 18, 2004 MZA presented a short course on Modeling and Simulation of Beam Control Systems at the Directed Energy Professional Society's (DEPS) Seventh Annual Directed Energy Symposium in Rockville, Maryland. Sixteen people attended the course and we received largely positive feedback on the presentation. The course covered a broad range of foundational, numerical, and practical aspects of constructing and analyzing computer simulations of Beam Control Systems (BCS). Of particular interest to wave optics simulationists is a rigorous development of sampling requirements on which Steve Coy has been working. The short course materials can be viewed or downloaded here.

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Morris Maynard to the MZA professional staff. Morris is a whiz at embedded systems programming. He previously held positions with EG&G and TRW and most recently worked as an independent consultant (Mayn Idea, Inc.) on a variety of optical and x-ray sensing and networking projects. He is now doing embedded systems programming for an adaptive optics laboratory experiment.

On October 18, 2004 the senior staff of MZA will present a short course on Modeling and Simulation of Beam Control Systems at the Directed Energy Professional Society's (DEPS) Seventh Annual Directed Energy Symposium in Rockville, Maryland. The course will cover a broad range of foundational, numerical, and practical aspects of constructing and analyzing computer simulations of Beam Control Systems (BCS), including active and passive imaging systems, High Energy Laser (HEL), Adaptive Optics (AO) and active and passive tracking systems. The class is not narrowly about the use of WaveTrain; rather it covers the topics of modeling, simulation, and analysis in a general fashion and uses WaveTrain to provide practical examples. Follow the links to obtain more information about DEPS. The short course materials can be viewed or downloaded here.

For the fourth year in a row, MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the awards.

On March 16, 2004 the United States Patent Office awarded MZA patent number 6,707,020 for the Adaptive Dynamic Range Wavefront Sensor (ADRWFS). The device is an adaptation of a Hartmann wavefront sensor that increases the dynamic range by more than a factor of five without reducing the sensor's accuracy. Bob Praus and Daniel Eastman invented the concept in the fall of 1998. You can view the full text of the patent at the U.S. Patent Office's website, a pdf of the patent, or contact MZA for more information. You can also view a user's manual for the original ADRWFS prototype.

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Bill Gruner to the MZA professional staff. Bill holds a Master of Science in Applied Statistics from the University of New Mexico. He was previously doing modeling and data analysis in the biomedical technology field. For MZA, he is heading up the development of the Airborne Laser Performance Analysis Tool (ABLPAT) and represents a significant addition to MZA's data analysis capabilities.

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Justin Mansell to the MZA professional staff. Justin holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University where he did research in MEMS deformable mirrors and adaptive optics systems. He will add substantial capabilities to MZA's adaptive optics analysis group, especially in the areas of experimental design and hardware integration.

MZA is pleased to announce the additions of Kavita Chand, Robert Suizu, and Dr. Keith Beardmore to the MZA professional staff. Kavita holds a Master of Technology in Applied Optics from the India Institute of Technology. Her background is in fiber optics and image processing. She will be providing support in the development of scientific software and in the analysis of adaptive optics systems. Robert Suizu has a Masters of Electrical Engineering from AFIT. He worked in the directed energy community as a Captain in the Air Force and then with RDA. He will be performing analysis and simulation of tracking and adaptive optics controls systems. Dr. Keith Beardmore holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from Loughborough University of Technology. His background is in semiconductor materials modeling and analysis. He will be performing analysis and simulation of wave-optics systems.

DeL Hutchins, one of MZA's talented computer scientists, has been accepted to the doctoral program at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. He'll continue to be associated with MZA, but will mostly be busy doing his research in advanced programming languages. In October DeL will present his paper "The Power of Symmetry: Unifying Inheritance and Generative Programming" at the 18th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications in Anaheim. (August 2003).

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Brent Strickler to the MZA professional staff. Brent Strickler was recently awarded a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Illinois. His background is in experimental physics and numerical simulation. Brent will be working primarily in the area of simulation and data analysis.

For the third year in a row, MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth.

In conjunction with the Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS) Directed Energy Simulation and Modeling Conference in Albuquerque, MZA held a free full-day workshop on the use of WaveTrain and its application to closed-loop beam control. The workshop held was Monday, March 24, 2003 at MZA's offices.

MZA just began distributing WaveTrain 2000. 11 Release G -- what we hope is the last incremental release of version 2000.11. Release G is a composition of newly developed features, compatibility modifications, bug fixes, and efficiency upgrades which should be backwards compatible with all previously developed WaveTrain simulations. The intent of Release G is to provide users with some of the latest WaveTrain capabilities while they are waiting for the release of WaveTrain 2003 -- a major update of the WaveTrain software which we expect out within the next couple of months. The release notes provide a comprehensive description of the release.

WaveTrain was singled-out as an example of a successful Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate (AFRL/DE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project. In conjunction with this recognition, MZA was allowed to exhibit its WaveTrain display booth at the Briefing for Industry (BFI) held by the Professional Aerospace Contractor's Association of New Mexico and the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Albuquerque Marriott on August 6 and 7. The development of WaveTrain has been supported by AFRL/DEBA ABL technology funding, a Dual Use Science and Technology (DUS&T) grant, and Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contracts. Recently, WaveTrain's Phase II SBIR contract was extended under the Air Force enhancement program. The enhanced funds will support the integration of thermal blooming and complex scenes into the latest version of WaveTrain.

MZA was awarded a Phase I SBIR contract by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for further development of tempus. tempus is a generalized object-oriented simulation and modeling environment designed to meet the needs of interdisciplinary simulation with complex interactions between subsystems. Even though tempus is fairly mature technology (it's used as the basis of WaveTrain), MZA obtained the Phase I SBIR by proposing to extend tempus technology to general software development.

In March 2002 MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. This is the second year in a row that MZA received such distinction. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the 2002 Flying 40.

It can be found here.

MZA Associates Corporation was listed 21st in New Mexico Business Weekly's list of Top Technology Companies in New Mexico. The list was published February 22, 2002 and is ranked by number of employees.

With the new government fiscal year underway, MZA began work on the High Energy Laser Modeling and Simulation (HELMAS) contract. HELMAS is a follow-on to MZA's AMASS II contract which was preceded by the initial AMASS contract that got MZA started. Dr. Boris Venet is the MZA principal investigator for HELMAS. Also, MZA teamed with Boeing-SVS who will provide advanced Optical Engineering and ATP/FC expertise.

The Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate (AFRL/DE) notified MZA that it was the successful bidder for the High Energy Laser Modeling and Simulation (HELMAS) contract. HELMAS is a follow-on to MZA's AMASS II contract which was preceded by the initial AMASS contract that got MZA started. Dr. Boris Venet will be the MZA principal investigator for HELMAS. Also, MZA teamed with Boeing-SVS who will provide advanced Optical Engineering and ATP/FC expertise.

MZA is pleased to announce that DeL Hutchins, a long-time part-time employee, has become a full-time MZA employee. DeL recently graduated with honors from the University of Texas with degrees in Computer Science and Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts. He is going to work out of his home in Austin, keeping close tabs with Zane Dodson, an MZA consultant who also lives there.

Recently someone on the internet sent out a bunch of unsolicited e-mail which appeared to be from an mza.com address. MZA does not advertise via e-mail and we do not send out bulk messages of any sort. We apologize if you appeared to be spammed from an MZA address, but we did not do it.

Liyang Xu, one of our top-notch scientific programmers who has been keeping our supercomputing capabilities up-to-date, recently defended his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of New Mexico. Having met all of the degree requirements, he will receive his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in June 2001. Liyang is the second employee to receive his Ph.D. while working at MZA. MZA presently has two other Ph.D. candidates in the wings who are finishing their dissertations.

MZA is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Boris P. Venet to the MZA professional staff. Boris is a multi-degreed physicist with fourteen years experience in optical physics research. He worked as a researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory for eleven years before moving on to SRI International for three years in Silicon Valley. He's now returned to Albuquerque to help bolster the analysis and simulation capabilities at MZA.

In March 2001 MZA was named to the New Mexico Technology Flying 40, a group of technology businesses recognized for their rapid growth. As computed by KPMG LLP, MZA has had 80% growth over the last four years, with revenues for 2000 of $1,790,900. The sponsors of the Flying 40 are Technology Ventures Corporation, KPMG, First State Bank and the Albuquerque Journal. A series of articles in the Albuquerque Journal provides information about the Flying 40.

MZA's President, Bob Praus, attributes the growth to its success in providing a diverse array of services to the Air Force Research Laboratory. "Because we can support such a broad spectrum of technologies, we've been able to grow steadily in the services area, but I believe that even more significant growth will occur in the next two years because of the increasing maturity of WaveTrain." WaveTrain is an object-oriented wave-optics modeling and simulation environment designed to give engineers and analysts insight to the design and performance of adaptive optics systems. Version 2000.11 which provides a significant documentation library was recently released. "Once we get the support and maintenance of WaveTrain down, we plan to hit the ground running with tempus." tempus is a generalized object-oriented simulation and modeling environment designed to meet the needs of interdisciplinary simulation with complex interactions between subsystems.