Robert S. Hilbert

Professional Experience

Education

Mr. Hilbert has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Optical Research Associates (ORA^®) since 2000. He has been actively involved in recruiting, and developing key technologists and managers at ORA, and in shaping and supporting selected new initiatives at the company. He has worked for ORA since 1975, initially, leading the Optical Engineering Services business. Mr. Hilbert has substantial experience in the management of R & D, including optical engineering and related software development. Prior to ORA, Mr. Hilbert worked for Itek Corporation from 1963-75, including as Director of Optics. In this position, he was responsible for all engineering and manufacturing necessary to design and produce mounted optics including optical design, opto-mechanical design, optical fabrication, assembly and test. Earlier positions at Itek included Manager of the Optical Engineering Department and Chief Optical Engineer. Itek pioneered satellite borne photo-optical reconnaissance systems (e.g. the now declassified CORONA Project) and was also a pioneer in high altitude strategic reconnaissance systems.

Mr. Hilbert's prior technical experience has focused on the development of new optical products from conception through early production. Specific technical areas in his background include: development of new concepts and designs for optical systems including visible, IR and UV sensors; contributions to the direction of CODE V® development, including graphics developments, MTF tolerancing, and HOE capability, Chief Engineer of R & D study contracts and hardware contracts including major IR sensor and Star Tracker developments; the optical design of a broad variety of fabricated optics such as a wide angle projection lens for 35 mm slides, a star tracker objective, a Raman Spectrograph relay lens, an f/0.62 low light level catadioptric TV lens, the objective for the A. F. KA-80 panoramic camera (also used on Apollo), a zoom system for visual use, an 80° field cos3 falloff objective, a one meter aperture wide field telescope, a finite multi-conjugate relay lens for rectifying CORONA panoramic photography, and a zoom lens for S.L.R. use. His experience including developing Qualification and Acceptance Test Procedures as well as the performance of component and system level tests, e.g., interferometric tests and data reduction of massive optics, and radiometric tests of electro-optical systems. He also has experience with the optical assembly and manufacturing engineering group, which prepared and implemented fabrication/assembly method sheets for producing complex components, subassemblies and systems. Early in his career as a precision optician, he fabricated high quality spherical and aspheric surfaces through figuring of 2-inch to 20-inch aperture optics to fractional wave tolerances.

Awards/Honors

Patents

Publications

"Practical Lens Design Using a Global Method," (with T. Kuper and T. Harris) OSA IODC, Vol. 22, p. 46, 1994.

Professional Societies, etc.