Herbert Gross was born in 1955. He studied Physics at the University of Stuttgart and joined Carl Zeiss in 1982. Since then he has been working in the department of optical design. His special areas of interest are the development of simulation methods, optical design software and algorithms, the modelling of laser systems and simulation of problems in physical optics, and the tolerancing and the measurement of optical systems. Since 1995, he has been heading the central optical design department at Zeiss. He served as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences at Aalen and at the University of Lausanne, and gave seminars for the Photonics Net of Baden Württemberg as well as several company internal courses. In 1995, he received his PhD at the University of Stuttgart on a work on the modelling of laser beam propagation in the partial coherent region. He has published several papers and has given many talks at conferences.