1995 - 2005:
Director of Production/Technical Services and Laser Safety Officer for Laser Fantasy International (LFI). Handled all aspects of laser entertainment applications for national and international installations and shows.

2005 - Present:
Co-Owner of Laser Safety Services LLC, “Providing Safe Laser Solutions”.
Roberta/LSS has provided outdoor laser safety training for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transport Canada as well as members of SAE G-10 committee. Roberta is often consulted by government agencies and other laser companies when laser safety issues are of concern.

Roberta/LSS handles the laser safety needs for laser companies that provide lasers for live televised productions such as the iHeart Music Awards, America’s Got Talent and the Grammys. Roberta has overseen all aspects of laser safety for touring artists including Metallica, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Queen, Electric Daisy Carnival, Shambala, Shpongle, Burning Man, Pet Shop Boys and MUSE, as well as corporate events such as SalesForce, Microsoft, Boeing. Roberta assists a wide variety of laser manufacturers of laser shows and/or laser entertainment projection systems.

Aside from participating in the creations of standards publications such as ANSI and SAE, Roberta has authored several articles on laser safety, such as Photonic Spectra and most recently for the Event Safety Alliance. Copies of these articles are available upon request.

Roberta is co-author of a laser safety book with Ken Barat, PhD, CLSO, titled “Laser Safety for the Light Show & Projection Industry”. This book was published in 2018, as a useful manual for the entertainment/display industry.

Roberta McHatton is an active member of the following Professional Organizations:

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
ANSI creates laser safety standards upon which national and international regulations are based. In addition to the ANSI Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) Roberta is on the following ANSI subcommittees:
• ANSI Z136.1 Safe Use of Lasers
• ANSI Z136.4 Measurement
• ANSI Z136.6 Safe Use of Lasers Outdoors
• ANSI Z136.10 Safe Use of Laser in Entertainment, Display and Exhibitions (Draft)
Roberta is also a member of the following ANSI Technical Subcommittees:
• TSC-1 Bio-Effects and Medical Surveillance
• TSC 4 Control Measures and Training

SAE (Society of Automotive Engineering)
SAE develops aerospace recommended practices (ARPs) for the aviation industry. As a member of the G-10T committee, working with other members of the aviation industry such as NASA, FAA, to create ARPs for the use of lasers in airspace.

ILDA (International Laser Display Association)
Roberta was elected to the Board in 2017 and reelected in 2019. Roberta is an active member of the ILDA Laser Safety Committee, the ILDA Ethics Committee and the ILDA U.S. Regulatory Committee. Roberta successfully completed the ILDA Laser Safety Officer course.

ESA (Event Safety Alliance)
ESA publishes the Event Safety Guide to fulfill the need in the USA to provide best practices to event producers on all aspects of how to safely produce an event. Roberta volunteered to write the section on laser safety which is included in the guide and wrote an article for titled Entertainment Event Laser Safety Considerations

ILDA Test Pattern • ILDA Technical Committee Chairman • ILDA's Advanced Technology Workshop • ILDA Board of Directors

ILDA Test Pattern
Created and introduced what is now the ILDA Test Pattern, defining a benchmark for scanner and blanking performance. This standard allowed essentially for the first time, interchange and playback of top quality laser vector graphic show content between laser light show companies. This also meant that shows no longer had to be programmed on the projector on which they would be played back to look correct. This gave rise to the independent laser programmer, quality clip art and the ability to purchase full shows. (with Robert Mueller)

ILDA Technical Committee Chairman
Served as ILDA Technical Standards Committee Chairman 1992-1996, creating and/or writing & adopting the following standards and concepts:

• ILDA Test Pattern (adopted)
• 12K and 30K scan speeds (adopted)
• ILDA Standard Connector (initiated)
• ILDA Standard Projector (initiated)

ILDA’s Advanced Technology Workshop
Created and then produced the ILDA Advanced Technology Workshop for the first several years. The ATW solved the problem of vendors getting 50 different answers from 50 ILDA member companies regarding desired technology development. The ATW provided a much appreciated one-stop forum to discuss product needs and gain industry consensus. In its first couple of years the ATW worked cooperatively with industry to promote and formally introduce ILDA members to: faster scanners, PCAOM color control, Beam Brush™, 3D displays, solid state lasers and many other great new technologies of the time. (with Steve Heminover)

ILDA Director
Served on the ILDA Board of Directors 1996 to 1998. These were exciting times. Technology was changing fast, as was the face of the industry. There are certainly significant personal and business benefits to be had from working cooperatively with your long time competitors.

World's Largest Projected Images • Pink Floyd (Roger Waters) • The Brain Show & other titles • Bottom of the Red Sea • Show Performance

World’s Largest Projected Images
Producer and Head Engineer, for the world’s largest projected images. ‘Water & Life’, Grand Coulee Dam, Washington State. A show projecting images nearly a mile wide, whose variant still runs 100+ nights a year, today 32 years later. This show contained 12,000 frames of hand animation, more than 25 times that of the next largest show at the time. Although the system incorporated two scan sets, all 80+ watts could be applied to a single scanner set without blooming. Quite an accomplishment for the day. (a Laser Fantasy project)

Pink Floyd (Roger Waters)
Dark Side of the Moon Tour ’06-‘07, Laser Prism. In 2003 I realized that if I did not get moving, I might not get a chance to cross Pink Floyd off my bucket list. So, I agitated and instigated for a Pink Floyd project with Kelly Sticksel. Kelly not only found the project, but turned it into an iconic once in a lifetime gig for our team. Nowhere else in my career did I hear the level of crowd response as when this physical laser-defined prism (not a projected graphic) begins to fade in floating above their heads. I asked Mark Brickman, Pink Floyd’s lighting designer since The Wall tour, for a year to figure out how to do this safely and legally. In the end, we got three months to pull it off. The show must go on. (cooperatively with ETG Magic Fire & Lightwave)

The Brain Show & other titles
These award winning immersive combined media volumetric 3D (as opposed to planar 3D) educational shows used linearly polarized glasses and mated fully rendered imagery to laser vectors with precision parallax. (no eye strain). Several pieces of laser display technology had to be invented and/or revised to produce and play back these 3D productions.

Bottom of the Red Sea
This ILDA Award-winning brainchild of Floyd Rollefstad (Laser Fantasy) presented even more challenges than Grand Coulee Dam. No kidding folks, an underwater laser show projected on the ocean floor and watched from a glass bottom boat. With undying gratitude to Matt Monforte.

Show Performance
Personally performed 600+ laser shows, in the days before automated computer playback.

Laser Illuminated Projectors • Laser Illuminated Lighting Instruments

Laser Illuminated Projectors
First raised the regulatory barrier alarm to the industry in 2006 pre-market, then assisted many of the global manufacturers of Laser Illuminated (video) Projectors in many aspects to launch this new industry. Today LIPs are found globally in homes, businesses, lecture halls, concert tours and movie cinemas.

Laser Illuminated Lighting Instruments
Chaperoned the U.S. introduction of LILIs. These additive-color scheme moving head fixtures use red, green and blue laser sources to generate dramatic advantages over HID or Xenon fixtures for entertainment lighting. They publicly debuted at the 2020 Super Bowl Half Time Show. (with Clay Paky)

Auto Digitizing • Analog Geometric Correction • Audience Scanning Meter • Digital Recording • Reliable Ion Lasers

Auto Digitizing
Proposed a method for perfect quality automatic digitizing of laser frames, with built in galvo response compensation 1986. Demonstrated auto digitizing fall 1992. Later commercialized by Lightspeed Design and others after 1995. (With Jim Arledge)

Analog Geometric Correction
Designed and deployed a geometrically accurate 12-stage realtime analog signal processing computer for geometry correction of programming and playback in the late 1980s, prior to digital systems being cost-effective for lightshow.

Audience Scanning Meter
Worked with light meter manufacturer to develop the cost effective and simple to use audience scanning safety meter, which is now sold by others. No more excuses for confusing ‘average power’ with ‘peak power’. The meter makes it trivial to measure broadband peak power in a scanned (pulsed) effect.

Digital Recording
Introduced what would become the revolutionary Alesis ADAT to the laser display industry and demonstrated DC-coupled show playback at IPS ’92 when only 12 factory prototype units existed and no one had heard of it. The ADAT was the first practical and cost-effective digital recording system. It was quickly adapted for laser playback in an age where computers were not yet up to the task of playing back long shows with high quality complex analog and digital imagery.

Reliable Ion Lasers
Worked closely with Coherent Laser to adapt their state-of-the-art Innova tungsten/copper/ceramic tube laser technology to entertainment applications resulting in specific light show models. Freeing the industry once and for all from the terrible fragility and lost shows of shipping glass laser tubes.

Audience Scanning Variances • Audience Scanning Training • ANSI Z136.10 Standards for Entertainment Lasers • L.I.P.A. • LILIs • IEC60825-1, part 4.4

Audience Scanning Variances
Developed a compliance strategy, then authored and negotiated most of the early audience scanning variances. Set-up automated web-based variance application and training systems for manufacturers.

Audience Scanning Training
Created and taught the first audience scanning training academy for those wishing to perform audience scanning effects safely and legally.

ANSI Z136.10 Standards for Entertainment Lasers
Vice Chair, ANSI (American National Standards Institute) Z136.10, SSC-10, Primary author of "Safe Use of Lasers in Entertainment, Displays, and Exhibitions" laser safety user’s standard. (with Jay Parkinson)

L.I.P.A.
Initiated creation of the Laser Illuminated Projector Association to provide a single voice when negotiating with the U.S. FDA, and to help foster a more reasonable regulatory environment for these low-radiance, low-risk laser display (video projector) devices. 2006-2020. (with Pete Ludé)

LILIs
Negotiated with FDA for better operating parameters for ‘LILIs' (Laser illuminated Lighting Instruments) and future General Lighting, gaining intentional exposure allowances.

IEC 60825-1, part 4.4
Original author, IEC 60825-1, part 4.4 "Laser Products Designed to Function as Conventional Lamps." This is the international regulation which ultimately allows many LIPs and future LILIs to be used without excessive laser-like regulation. This also opens the path for the forthcoming laser-pumped phosphor lighting (home and enterprise) in a more reasonable regulatory environment. (With David Sliney)

ANSI Z136.1
Contributing Author & Member, ANSI Z136.1, and TSC 4. "Safe Use of Lasers," the U.S. laser safety standard.

Laser Fantasy International • Lightspeed Design Group • Laser Physics Inc. • Laser Compliance Inc.

Technical Director, Laser Fantasy International 1996-1992
Lead development of the LFI E3500 two-channel, five scan set, analog color control projectors for planetaria. The E3500’s still unmatched colors and color control is half of the reason why Laser Fantasy took over the US planetarium laser show business with more than 30 planetarium installations. Three separate but recently removed E3500 systems showed near flawless reliability with essentially only cleaning and tube replacement for 25+ years.

Founding Partner, Lightspeed Design Group 1992-1996
Our team won 40% of all of the annual ILDA artistic awards in our first year of business! Casey’s business partner Robert Mueller also received the 1993 ILDA Career Achievement Award the same year. Served as VP of Technology and lead engineer during development of a new 3D laser display format, Laser Enhanced Multi Media. This technology mated stereoscopic volumetric 3D CGI with perfectly interlocked 3D laser vector graphics in an immersive environment. A top theme park executive once quipped "You can’t tell anybody I said so, but this is better than our 3D." Used in several museums and special presentations for 15+ years.

VP International Sales, Laser Physics Inc. 1996
We built the ILDA Award-winning 300WC portable air-cooled white-light mixed-gas laser as well as other ion lasers specifically for entertainment.

President, Laser Compliance Inc. 1998-present
Assisting manufacturers and importers in laser product safety and compliance. Laser Compliance is known as the "go to" solution for highly unusual and difficult laser safety and compliance problems needing fast resolution, especially in laser display.