The Annual Meeting of The Technical Society of Knoxville begins at 11:00 a.m.

TSK’s annual reports will be presented and members in good standing will elect officers and directors of the board.
Please make sure to arrive early if you have not already paid your 2026 dues.
If you wish to pay by credit card, please do so through this website as we are not set up to accept credit cards at our meetings.

The Luncheon Buffet opens at 11:30 a.m. 

Price for buffet lunch is $15 (includes complimentary parking in the hotel garage).

If you plan to eat, please RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday, January 9 at noon.

 If you choose not to eat, a charge of $7 will cover parking and event arrangements.

The featured presentation by Professor Lyons begins at noon.

Prof. Lyons will provide a brief introduction to the history of dimensional prints and book forms, works that engage not only the use of the printed sheet, but also involve three and sometimes four dimensions. An early example includes volvelles from the 13^th century which consisted of a series of drawn or printed discs which could be rotated to predict calendrical or astronomical phenomena.

In the 16^th century Andreas Vesalius used paper engineering to teach anatomy in books that had multiple layers to reveal the structure of the human body. This use of flaps — which could be used to reveal new scenes — was a common approach in books where the turning of flaps could reveal a story’s narrative.

In the 19^th century the production of dimensional and movable books was greatly enhanced through the use of color-lithography, especially by German publishers. Some of the forms I will present include “peep show” books, which are a form of tunnel book; carousel books, which also allow for a layered presentation of space; and what we often call pop-up books today, which use both parallel and converging folds to create dimension and movement when the book page is opened.

Beauvai Lyons has taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville since 1985. His one-person exhibitions have travelled to over 80 museums and galleries, and his lithographs are in the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art (Washington, DC) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA). In 2002 he received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at the Fine Arts Academy in Poznañ, Poland, and in 2014 he received the Santo Foundation Artist Award. 

The Anatomy of a Frog from The Encyclopedia of Nature, 1907

For more information on TSK and its meetings, please email TSK secretary, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call him at 865-679-9854.

Price for buffet lunch is $15 (includes complimentary parking in the hotel garage).

If you plan to eat, please RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday, December 5 at noon.

 If you choose not to eat, a charge of $7 will cover parking and event arrangements.

The formal meeting begins at 11:55 a.m.

Dr. Hardin will start with a general overview of Wacker. The heart of his presentation/discussion will focus on the hyperpure polysilicon production process. He will share basic insights into the downstream aspects of how Wacker’s material is used to make wafers for the solar and semiconductor world.

He hopes his presentation will be as interactive as possible. No death by PowerPoint!

He enjoys a back and forth when giving presentations.

He will bring items and examples to be seen in real life.

Wacker Chemie AG — a German multinational corporation founded in 1914 — has 28 production facilities and 21 Technical Competence Centers on 5 continents.

The Wacker Polysilicon North America, LLC plant in Charleston, Tennessee was the company’s largest single investment of some $2.5 billion. It became fully operational in 2016. It also was the largest-ever single private investment in the state of Tennessee. It still is the largest one that actually has been completed.

The site has even been expanded to produce HDK^® brand pyrogenic silica since 2019. And, in 2022 Wacker announced plans to invest more than $200 million to add production plants for high-consistency silicone rubber and silicone sealants.

Robert Hardin earned MS and PhD degrees in plasma physics from West Virginia University. He has extensive work experience in experimental nuclear physics. He developed a real time analog feedback/damper system for mitigation of proton beam instabilities in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) accumulator ring and led many accelerator experiments at ORNL and other labs in the U.S. and Europe.

Last April, he was appointed President of the Board of Directors at the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council (TAEBC), which was among the organizations instrumental in attracting Wacker and many other global companies to the Volunteer State. TABEC promotes the growth of an advanced energy economy to strengthen Tennessee’s reputation as a leader in innovative technologies.

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy.
What a source of power!
I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
— Thomas Edison, 1931

Distillation columns for the production of trichlorosilane at Charleston, TN. Wacker has been producing high-purity polysilicon there since 2015, and HDK® brand pyrogenic silica since 2019.

For more information on TSK and its meetings, please email TSK secretary, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call him at 865-679-9854.

Price for buffet lunch is $15 (includes complimentary parking in the hotel garage).

If you plan to eat, please RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday, November 7 at noon.

 If you choose not to eat, a charge of $7 will cover parking and event arrangements.

The formal meeting begins at 11:55 a.m.

• permits and inspects all flammable and combustible storage tanks (Class I, II or III) greater than 60 gallons, including aboveground storage tanks, underground storage tanks and liquified petroleum gas tanks
• permits and monitors pyrotechnic displays
• enforces all state and local codes involving fire safety and prevention
• inspects and monitors special events for cooking tents and large public gatherings and
• provides an on-call inspector for emergency situations.

Sonny Partin is a Certified Fire Protection Specialist who has been with the Knoxville Fire Department for 30 years.

Price for buffet lunch is $15 (includes complimentary parking in the hotel garage).

If you plan to eat, please RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday, September 5 at noon.

 If you choose not to eat, a charge of $7 will cover parking and event arrangements.

The formal meeting begins at 11:55 a.m.

In 1940 Oak Ridge did not exist and UT had no PhD programs. Much has changed in the last 80 years as UT and the federal facilities in Oak Ridge have grown enormously and in many examples jointly. The UT partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory is unique in the country. Some of the history of this partnership will be discussed, along with the benefits that have come to each institution. This topic is explored in detail in a new book published in 2024 by UT Press: Critical Connections: The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge from the Dawn of the Atomic Age to the Present, by Lee Riedinger, Al Ekkebus, Ray Smith, and William Bugg.

Lee Riedinger got his physics PhD from Vanderbilt in 1968 after spending two years working on dissertation research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He joined the University of Tennessee Physics faculty in 1971 and served there until his retirement in 2019.

His field is experimental nuclear physics and he led many experiments at accelerators at ORNL and other labs in the U.S. and Europe. He was the UT vice chancellor for research three different times and directed the UT/ORNL Science Alliance in the 1980s.

Reidinger was one of the leaders of the initiative at UT to team with Battelle and bid on the contract to manage ORNL, which succeeded as the UT-Battelle LLC tenure at ORNL began in 2000. He served on this management team from 2000 to 2006, the first four years as the deputy director for science and technology.

He returned to UT in 2006 and next started the UT/ORNL Bredesen Center in 2010 and its two new interdisciplinary PhD programs, which he directed until his retirement.

For more information on TSK and its meetings, please email TSK secretary, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call him at 865-679-9854.