All members of the SLAC

September will be an extraordinary month here at SLAC, full of positive as well as difficult emotions.

We have so much to be proud of as we prepare to celebrate our 40th anniversary. SLAC’s legacy of groundbreaking research has had a worldwide impact in particle physics, accelerator physics, and synchrotron radiation research, computing, engineering and many other areas.

The 40th Anniversary Family Day on September 14 and the more formal celebration on October 2 give us the opportunity to come together to look back at all we have achieved in the past and look forward to forty more years of exciting innovation and research at SLAC.

With this in mind I’d like to welcome everyone to the new Interaction Point. We’ve seen TIP evolve over the years, and this version is part of a larger effort to improve communications at the Laboratory. The newspaper will be on your desk on the first and third Friday of each month and will be a major step forward in sharing information at SLAC.

As with any new effort, I am looking to you to contribute your ideas and time to help make TIP the most useful and relevant newsletter it can be. Please let the editors know what you’d like to see included.

Finally, next week will mark the one-year anniversary of the terrible September 11 attacks. These events shocked and changed us, individually and as a nation. Here at SLAC we will be observing a minute of silence site wide at 9:00 a.m. on September 11. At noon there will be an opportunity to share thoughts and emotions at the picnic area between SSRL and SCS. I hope you will join me there.