John’s active involvement in amateur astronomy stretches over 60 years. He has three undergraduate degrees, and he taught Terrestrial and Lunar Astronomy classes at the University of Cincinnati for 17 years and Basic Astronomy classes for over 50 years at the University of Cincinnati’s Communiversity.

He was the first Chair of a committee to save the Cincinnati Observatory from destruction in the late 1990s, when the University of Cincinnati intended to close it. In the late 1990’s, when the Cincinnati Observatory Center was created, he was the Observatory’s first Director and astronomer.

He has co-authored three books on astronomical history and education, including Cincinnati Observatory: Its Critical Role in the Birth and Evolution of Astronomy in America and A Brief History of the Cincinnati Astronomical Society.

In 2020, he received the Astronomical League Great Lakes Region’s Hans Baldauf Award. He has a large asteroid named for him, and he is an Honorary Life Member of both the Cincinnati Astronomical Society and the Cincinnati Observatory Center.

He served as the Historian for the Cincinnati Observatory Center for the past 25 years.

Topic: John will be kicking of our ALCON 2026 soft start Thursday morning presenting The Case of the Stolen Lens. A story about how he led the nearly 20-year effort to find and recover the Cincinnati Astronomical Society’s stolen 1880 Alvan Clark 8.25-inch objective lens.