SIR Bidwell Branch 110 Luncheon July 28, 2025
Greg Sanger
Our seaker for July was Greg Sanger who talked about the Chico Regional
Airport – Past, Present And Future.
Born in Spokane, Washington in 1946, Greg moved with his family to Los Angeles County at
the age of 5. He grew up there, attending local schools including college at Cal State
University, Northridge, where he graduated with a BS in Physics. Not able to find
suitable work at the time, he applied to several colleges for graduate study in physics.
He eventually decided on the University of Arizona in Tucson where he earned an MS and
PhD in Optical Physics. More importantly he met and married Betsy, his wife of 52 years.
They have one daughter and two grandsons currently living in the Sacramento area.
For 36 years after school, he designed and developed large ground based astronomical
telescopes, reconnaissance and surveillance satellites, nuclear weapons, high powered
lasers, and a large variety of optical components and systems for many ground, air and
space based platforms. He held several technical, operational, business development and
general management positions in companies such as United Technologies, Perkin-Elmer,
Spectra-Physics, Corning, Exotic Electro-Optics and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. He is the author of 43 technical publications and holds several patents.
Dr. Sanger is a past Instructor at Yuba Community College and an Adjunct Professor of
Physics at Chico State University. He was Chairman of the Board for The Work Training
Center here in Chico. He has also served the City of Chico as an Airport Commissioner
and currently works with the City in its effort to return commercial air service to
our Airport.
In retirement, he enjoys writing, both science fiction and a technical opinion column
known as, “Useless And Irrelevant Words,” target shooting, wood working, creating
Southwestern Indian Gourd Art, and building and flying RC model aircraft.