SEM History

SEM Milestones

SEM has a long and rich history, dutifully recounted by Chuck Taylor. It helps us all to place events by landmarks. Here, Chuck has outlined several milestones throughout SEM History.

• Elgin L. Shaw was SESA President. (Help!! we have lost touch with Elgin Shaw. Anyone who knows his whereabouts after 1953, please contact Pat Deuschle, pb )

• Bill Murray was the SESA Secretary and carried out virtually all of the Society’s business from his MIT office.
• 1950 Spring Meeting was held in Cleveland
• 1950 Annual Meeting was held in New York

• Ben Lazan was SESA President
• Bonney Rossi was hired as Executive Secretary
• Len Vidmark and Carl Willers also joined the Westport Headquarters Staff
• 1960 SESA Spring Meeting was held in Indianapolis
• 1960 SESA Annual Meeting was held in Berkeley in October
• Bob Steidel was the meeting chairman
• R. E. Peterson presented the Murray Lecture
• Edward Teller was banquet speaker

• 1970 SESA Spring Meeting was held in Huntsville:
• Cliff Barton was SESA President
• “Doc” Sturm was the meeting chairman
• 1970 SESA Fall Meeting and Exposition was held in Boston:
• Jim Dally was SESA President
• Everett Reed was the meeting chairman
• Bernie Langer presented the Murray Lecture
• Bill Murray’s past students serenaded and sur- prised him with a birthday cake with 60 candles.
• Sam Levy led a very successful ASME Exchange Session which included: Phil Hodge, Burton Paul, Y.H. Pao and George Herrmann

• 1980 The Fourth SESA International Congress on Experimental Mechanics was held in Boston in May:
• Bob Johnson was SESA president
• Ken Galione was the Managing Director
• Aldie Johnson was the meeting chairman
• Anthos Bray presented the Murray Lecture
• A concert by the Boston Pops Orchestra was a popular scheduled highlight.
• 1980 SESA Fall Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale:
• Mike Fourney was SESA President
• John Prosser was the meeting chairman
• Fall SESA meetings were being greatly scaled back
• The meeting was held at The Bahia Mar Hotel (with elegant accomodations and a beautiful marina, who needs technical sessions?)

• 1990 SEM Spring Conference was held in Albuquerque: Albert Kobayashi was SEM President

• Mike Fourney presented the Murray Lecture
• 1990 SEM Fall Conference was held in Baltimore:
• Bob Sullivan was SEM President
• Karl Stetson and R. J. Pryputniewicz organized an International Conference on Holographic Interfer- ometry and Speckle Metrology commemorating the 25th anniversary of the development of those methods.
• Founding members and Past Presidents, Bill Murray and Charles Lipson died in 1990. We also lost Lee Weymouth and Jim Starr.