I graduated in 1976 from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) with a Diploma in Engineering, having completed my diploma thesis (together with my then fellow student Prof. Konstantinos Katsabalos) on Satellite Geodesy, under the supervision of Prof. GeorgiosVeis.

Following Prof.Veis’s advice to continue my studies abroad, I chose to attend the same institution from which he himself had graduated, the internationally renowned Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, OH. While awaiting the completion of my enrollment at OSU, during 1975–1976 I participated together with Konstantinos Katsabalos in Prof.Veis’s team that would carry out observations of the annular solar eclipse on 29 April 1976. The path of the eclipse passed over Santorini, and the team installed its observation instruments at Akrotiri. The two of us were responsible for the installation and operation of a unique camera (Bonsdorff) that Prof.Veis had borrowed from Prof. Kokkamaki of the Geodetic Institute of Finland, mounted on a special telescope. In September 1976, following my marriage the previous August to my fellow student Despoina Bartsaloulia, together with my close friend and now best man Kostas Katsabalos, we departed for OSU. After completing a Master of Science (MSc) in 1979, I graduated with a doctorate from the Department of Geodetic Science and Surveying at OSU in 1983.

The knowledge and experience we gained studying and collaborating with ProfessorVeis were an invaluable foundation in our development and the shaping of our careers. At every subsequent meeting at conferences, lectures and similar events, that relationship was further consolidated — for example, in 1984 at an international conference in Sopron, Hungary. Although an ocean separated us, whenever an opportunity arose to meet and honour him we always participated actively; for instance, the International Workshop on Global Positioning Systems in Geosciences in 1992 in Chania was organised in his honour by former students. The ILRS Technical Workshop on “SLR Tracking of GNSS Constellation” in 2009 in Metsovo was co-organised by me with NTUA to celebrate 50 years of Satellite Geodesy and his 80th birthday. It was a final opportunity for young geodesists from around the world to meet and hear him, and for all his former students to see him again and pay tribute. His passing in 2022 undoubtedly left a great void in the scientific community, but for his students, we will miss him both as a teacher and as a friend.