Thuringians at SPIE Photonics West

If you asked me to name the optics capital of the world, I’d pick Jena, Germany. Since 1846, the city has been the home of the venerable optical equipment manufacturer Carl Zeiss AG . Its sister company Schott AG is also based in Jena. Both companies, which are part of the Carl Zeiss Group, continue to thrive.

I doubt I’m the only person here at SPIE Photonics West who’d also choose Jena. Given the city’s fame, I was surprised, therefore, to receive an invitation to a cocktail reception and buffet hosted during Photonics West by the State Development Corporation of Thuringia, the state where Jena is located. The reception’s goal was to tout Thuringia as a place to do business, optics business.

Despite Thuringia’s prominence in optics—Jenoptik AG and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering are also in Jena—the state, whose coat of arms is shown below, needs more companies to move there.

Like other parts of the former East Germany, Thuringia is trying to catch up economically with Germany’s rich Western states. At $25 0 00, its gross state product per capita is $10 000 lower than the German average and a daunting $36 000 lower than that of Hamburg, Germany’s richest state.

Thuringia is evidently succeeding in attracting companies. One of the speakers at the reception was Michael Foley, the CEO of Reflexite Corp . Based in Avon, Connecticut, Reflexite makes a wide range of reflective materials, including microstructured optics components for the solar power industry. Its German headquarters are in the Thuringian town of Apolda, 20 km from Jena.

I didn’t stay to hear Foley speak, so I’m not sure if he told his fellow guests why his company chose Thuringia. I wouldn’t be surprised if he cited the long tradition of optics in the region or the central location (Erfurt, the state capital, is the closest city to Germany’s geographical center). Maybe Thuringia offers tax breaks.

But whatever the reasons, I was impressed by the effort Thuringia is making to ensure it retains its preeminence in optics. In today’s global economy, no region—even one with a long history of industrial innovation—can afford to be complacent.