@Mriswith2k: sorry about that. My test setup has 8 columns named #composite, #oomp2, #comp3, etc. I wanted reasonable names in the post, but was too lazy to redo my columns. Clearly I didn't get it right.
@speakingtohe: again, sorry about that. There is a typo in the template. The < character near series_index should be a > character. Not sure how this happened, because it is correct in my test column.
The correct string is:
Source template:
{series:re(([^\s])[^\s]+(\s|$),\1)}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}