How do we make more optical designers?

There is a shortage of trained optical engineers in our industry, particularly a shortfall of optical design engineers. One way to create more optical designers is through a cultivation strategy. This work discusses the current optical design education process and describes a possible strategy to cultivate engineers into real working optical design engineers based on the mentorship program used by Hughes Aircraft Company in the 1980s. The process used by Hughes Aircraft Company is discussed and a possible structure for implementing something similar is based on today’s toolset and requirements. The design process is broken into 12 blocks, each of which consists of four one hour classes with four hours of homework for each. Using a layered approach, the homework can accommodate students with diverse backgrounds and skills and can be taught using any of the existing optical design codes. The document includes a detailed structure of 48 lessons for a possible mentoring program, which can be customized as necessary for specific groups of students or companies. The mentoring program has been refined over the past five years, with more than 30 participants to date in seven countries and a dozen companies with great success.