A few years after the studio officially opened, the company incorporated under the name "Swiridoff Photography, Inc. At the same time I became more active in the Photographers Association professionals from Central California, attending local state and national events. Encouraged by a dear friend, Elmer Kingham of Redlands, I prepared a topic and followed a lecture circuit up and down the state presenting it to other local photography associations it was one of the requirements counted towards the total cumulative merit points required for a Master's degree in photography, as well as national exhibition merits and merits received for attending extension courses offered by the state association at the West Coast School of Photography from Santa Barbara. I usually went there on my annual weeklong vacation, enjoying the camaraderie of colleagues and broadening my horizons in special areas of photography, sometimes taking one of my employees with me. Then followed years of holding local and state board positions. organizations, eventually serving as president of the PPCC, which was a great opportunity to give back to the profession some of what I had learned in the process of running my own business. Interestingly, one of my first speaking engagements took me to Redlands, about 300 miles southeast of Fresno, where I presented a program at the Inland Empire Photographers Association. On that occasion I also visited my dear friends Lisa and Neil Adair in their studio and spent the night at Elmer and Vera Kingham's home at 811 West Olive Street. (Same street number as our first address in Fresno) Little did I know that 30 years later I would become a "regular" in Redlands and that I... middle of paper... professional life as a photographer and businessman, there are There have been other ways in which my life has been greatly enriched. First by our children, who came into our lives like unexpected miracles, and then by events that led me to reconnect with my Russian roots and then also in a truly extraordinary way by witnessing and witnessing the miracle of the live birth events of our two godchildren Katharina, daughter of my brother Paul, who he fathered at his young and virile age of 80 and then Alexa, my Russian namesake, born in November 1995. At the time of writing, as grandparents, having the joy of remotely observing our children's parenting skills over our 6 talented grandchildren, Connor, Caleb, Collin, Cassandra, Clarissa and Christian, wondering what their mission in life is, "what worlds they could conquer and to what distant planets they could travel to"…”