For over 30 years I made contributions to the optics and photonics community through my employment in university, industry and government as a researcher, system engineer, and technical manager. I have numerous publications and presentations directly resulting from my research in the fields of atmospheric and space environment with collaborations utilizing various space-based optical instruments such as grating spectrometer, imaging spectrometer, and Fourier transform spectrometer as well as various other optical instruments and cameras. As a member of the team for the Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), I was responsible for the developed and management of the end-to-end algorithms and modeling necessary to produce the final data products. CrIS is currently on Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite providing soundings of the atmosphere with 1305 spectral channels, over 3 wavelength ranges (LWIR 9.14 – 15.38 um; MWIR 5.71 – 8.26 um; and SWIR 3.92 – 4.64 um) and produces high-resolution, three-dimensional temperature, pressure, and moisture profiles of the earth’s atmosphere necessary for long range weather forecasting. My research and technical management has ranged from the Earth’s atmosphere to the Sun mandating me to focus on efforts for the creation of new and cutting edge optical instruments ranging from soft x-rays, EUV, UV, Visible, IR to microwaves. I have been recognized for my work with awards from University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), NASA and U. S. Air Force. In my role as a senior technical manager for the U. S. Air Force Research Laboratory I oversaw a number of important research programs that heavily rely on optical instrumentation to achieve their goals.