Applied Energetics has appointed Gregory J. Quarles as president, CEO, and board member, effective May 6. He will lead the company in its development of next-generation advanced defense technologies based on ultrashort pulse and laser-guided energy. Quarles, 57, is an experienced CEO, board member, and physicist with over 30 years of experience driving cutting-edge laser, optics, and photonics technology development and operations within advanced industrial companies. He is a recognized leader for his strategic partnerships with the U.S. Department of Defense and his work in the progression of global materials research, specifically developing new laser devices for a variety of military, medical, and industrial applications. Quarles succeeds Brad Adamczyk, who has served as principal executive officer since August 6, 2018. Adamczyk becomes chairman of the board of Applied Energetics, effective immediately. Before joining Applied Energetics, Quarles spent the past six years with The Optical Society of America (OSA) in Washington, D.C., both as a board member and more recently as the chief scientific officer. His responsibilities encompassed a broad range of scientific, technical, and engineering infrastructure, and included content development for the OSA meetings portfolio, along with many other related projects, highlighted by his reports to Congress. Quarles has been personally involved through OSA in the establishment of many partnerships involving R&D laboratories and global agencies. This involvement includes being a long-standing member of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Industry and Security, and the Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee (SITAC). He is the founder of Opto-Electronic Management Network, a private consulting firm specializing in the laser and materials industry, with primary focus on the defense, aerospace, and nanomaterials sectors located in Tucson, Ariz. Since 2012, the firm has worked with numerous corporations in the areas of public policy, defense, and commercial executive oversight of optics- and photonics-based research and production. From 2008 until 2012, Quarles served as a board member of Redmond, Wash.-based B.E. Meyers & Co. Inc., a developer, manufacturer, and systems integrator of optoelectronic and related products used in defense, law enforcement, and industrial applications. He served the company as CEO, president, and chief operations officers. From 2002 until 2010, he served as director of corporate research, development, and technology, and director of federal government relations for II-VI Inc. of Saxonburg, Pa. He began his career in the optoelectronic field in 1987 when he joined the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., as a research physicist in the Optical Sciences Division. Quarles has both a doctorate and a master's degree in physics, and a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics, all from Oklahoma State University. He has been awarded five patents related to his research in solid-state lasers, with three patents pending, and has over 110 peer-reviewed publications and presentations.