Lessons from research in color science on the bleeding edge (Invited).

The end of life is a good time to look back to what I have learned in the past 50 years and share my lessons. Except for stints in engineering and marketing, I have worked mostly in research labs. Although I was mostly in an imaging lab, de facto my research has been primarily in color science. I have worked in industry, but on the side I have volunteered for national science foundations, learned societies, and patent offices. The main take-away is that life in research is not smooth, you have to be resilient to set-backs, and be well connected.