AESA President’s Message
Dear Friends,
This year the Armenian people celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the decisive Armenian victory at the battle of Sardarabad. The battle to which we owe our existence today as a people and as a republic. This republic was threatened again by the Turkish republic under Ismet Inonu. During World War II this silent ally of the Third Reich was ready to pounce on our motherland anticipating the victory of Wehrmacht and its Fascist allies in the battle of Stalingrad. However, the 76th Armenian Mountain Division on November 23rd, 1942 in an epic battle defeated the enemy and saved the Caucuses and Crimea with the assistance of the 89th Armenian Rifle Division. Twenty-four years after the battle Sardarabad, Turkey’s imperialistic plans towards Armenia were defeated again.
We also celebrated in this memorable year the 26th Anniversary of the Liberation of Artsakh. The establishment of another Armenian country. A free democratic Artsakh. A country that provided the motherland with a strategical depth that was truncated from Armenia by the Stalinist regime. This improbable victory, as a lot of pundits incorrectly predicted demonstrated that the Armenian spirit for progress, freedom and unity can not and will not be defeated. As our prime minister remarked” The contributions of the Armenian people in the Great Patriotic War will remain in history forever.”
Today we stand in awe and we stand proud because of the great and heroic sacrifices of our soldiers and their families. To them our eternal debt.
We at the Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America (AESA) are proud of the accomplishments of our troops on the field and in our research labs and our budding defensive industry. Under the leadership of defense minister David Tonoyan and deputy defense minister physicist- engineer David Pakhchanyan we are confident that great strides are going to be accomplished in that field. We are also fortunate to have a mathematician -physicist as a president, Dr. Armen Sarkissian.
Winston Churchill once remarked that “the problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat but they are no less difficult”. In this context Armenia faced a multitude of difficult problems. To name just a few corruption, social inequality, pollution, devaluing farming as an occupation, migration of technical talent and the collapse of our industry. The enemy on the gates was defeated but this set of internal problems threatened to spoil the military victories we have accomplished in the last one hundred years. They loomed far more formidable and threatening than anticipated.
The nation was at a crossroad, business as usual and a grey nabulus future or a change that never happened in any of the ex-Soviet republics. At this juncture emerged a charismatic journalist and a member of parliament with his backpack. He challenged the whole unjust system that is run by the mafia-oligarchies conglomerate and their stooges. With the undaunted Armenian spirit, he marched. He was supported with battalions of young partisans armed to the teeth with the latest smart phones and laptops. They navigated magnificently through social media to coordinated their thrusts at the corrupt structure that could not withstand their onslaught. They marched and marched onward to victory. To our victorious prime minster Nikol Pashinyan and his battalions our best wishes and gratitude. You made 2018 a historic and victorious year.
The uprooting of corruption is the battle that is being waged currently is at early waxing stages. We are very confident that in the very near future we will be cultivating the positive dividends of this epic struggle. The struggle that will benefit and enhance the progress of our industry, science- engineering, medicine and defense, but most importantly, our nation’s destiny as a whole.
This is also the year that the AESA will celebrate the 35th Anniversary of its founding. This organization which was founded to forge a lasting professional and collegial bond between Armenian scientists and engineers and their Armenian-American counterparts.
I invite you join your organization and participate in our celebrations. Your involvement is indispensable to our success.
John-Emmanuel Shirajian,
AESA President 2018
OUR FUTURE
We as the AESA know that our community’s future depends entirely on the next generation of engineers and scientists. In 2015, the Young Professionals Committee was created to build a stronger connection to the youth and bridge the expertise of our organization with the ambitious minds of tomorrow’s professionals.
Learn more about the Young Professionals Committee here.
Dr. Hagop Panossian recalls that the nucleus for creating AESA started first as a dream during his early years in college. He wished for a worldwide Armenian scientific organization with the objective of creating venues for all engineers, scientists and industrialists of Armenian descent so that they might network, interact and help one another. The organization would include all Armenians under its wings, those from Armenia and the rest of the world.
During the late seventies, Dr. Panossian met 
with his friend, Dr. Stepan Simonian, in UCLA. They discussed the idea of a worldwide Armenian scientific organization to which Simonian expressed his great excitement. Panossian also presented the concept to the late Professor George Adomian who was a well-known mathematician and professor at the University of Georgia, in Atlanta. Panossian was further encouraged by the Professor’s enthusiasm. Upon this, Dr. Panossian and his wife Ani compiled a list of engineers and scientists from all around the world. They sent letters expressing the intent of forming an all Armenian engineering and scientific organization and received numerous positive responses but, of course, not without some negative ones as well.
During one of Professor Adomian’s visits to Los Angeles, Panossian with the help of Stepan Simonian and Misak Apelian contacted nearly 40 Armenian engineers and scientists and organized the first and official founding meeting on June 30, 1983. The founding meeting was held in the Castaways restaurant in Burbank and was attended by 23 people, they are:
Hagop Panossian, Stepan Simonian, Misak Apelian, Khachig Demirjian, Raffi Ohanian, Hrair Jabaghchourian, Varoujan Demirjian, Emil Maghakian, Robert Hartounian, Zaven Guiragossian, Asadour Hadjian, Zohrab Bedrossian, Abraham Bouyadjian, Varoujan Bedoyan, Hagop Bedikian, Alex Grigorian, Harutiun Surmenian, Ara Chutjian, Souren Bouickians, George Adomian, Ed Boyajian, George Mutafian and Vanagan Tatevosian.
The actual name “Armenian Engineers & Scientists of America” was coined at a later time during one of the succeeding meetings of the organization.
Later, in 1984, Panossian appointed an organizing committee consisting of Asadour Hadjian, Dr. Alex Grigorian, Misak Apelian, Dr. Stepan Simonian and Dr. Panossian himself. The organizing committee was tasked to develop the bylaws, obtain an official nonprofit status and organize the operating structure of AESA overall. Dr. Ara Chutjian, Harutiun Surmenian and Hagop Bedikian later joined the committee. The committee used the bylaws of the American Physical Society as a template, made some modifications to them and established a set of bylaws for AESA.