The OSSC History Project

In 1996, OSSC President Susan Raffensperger (now Rico) asked Tom Godfrey to be the OSSC's first Historian.  Tom's OSSC Biography is here. Tom became an OSSC Fellow on June 11, 1999.  Additional info here.   Tom received the 2nd OSSC Lifetime Achievement Award in June 2016 Tom Godfrey Lifetime Achievement Award Booklet. 

Tom passed on Nov. 6, 2021, Memoriam and became a a very important part of the OSSC History.

On Nov. 22, 2023, Scott Rowe and Donn Silberman visited Tom's widow, Karen, at her invitation, to go through a garage full of OSSC History and were able to obtain boxes of OSSC historical files, optics and related textbooks and outreach materials.

Scott started the OSSC History Project and began the process of scanning pages into the computer and recruited a few OSSC members to help.  This process is on-going now.

Donn collected Tom's old textbooks and outreach materials and has re-donated many of the books.

This webpage will serve as the repository for information on this project until the projects grows to a point where more digital storage is required. 


Please contact Scott Rowe or Donn Silberman for more information or to volunteer to help on this project.


Upload a document for the OSSC History Project including documents for the June 10th 2026 OSSC Meeting.   Submission Form