Wes Hennessy was Polychrome's second president

Mr. Hennessy was our second president in mid 1970 after he left Columbia University but his influence on Polychrome appears to be negligible.         It was probably because  Mr. Halpern remained in charge as the chairman of the board and had his iron grip on running of the company.       Perhaps Mr. Halpern was seeking an industry recognition through association with well established institution like Columbia University.      This New York Times obituary gives us the background of this fine gentleman who used to stop by us and talk about his hobby, photography.

Wesley Hennessy, 77, Ex-Dean at Columbia

Published: October 18, 1991

Wesley J. Hennessy, a former dean of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, died on Oct. 8 at North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach, Fla. He was 77 years old.

Mr. Hennessy, a resident of Deerfield Beach, Fla., died of heart failure, his family said.

Although not an engineer, he was an administrator at the school for 31 years and its dean from 1969 to 1975. He promoted the integration of engineering with liberal arts in a five-year course of study.

In 1957, he quit Theta Thau, a national engineers' fraternity, to protest its barring of blacks.

For two decades Mr. Hennessy advised South Korea on industry and education. After leaving Columbia, he was president of the Polychrome Corporation in Yonkers for two years and later was a director and acting chairman of the Hazeltine Corporation on Long Island.

He is survived by his wife, the former Virginia Campbell; four daughters, Holly Yellen of Nyack, N.Y., Heather Hoisington of Norwich, Vt., Karen Senko of Pompano Beach and Anne, of Deerfield Beach; three sons, Kevin, of Wellington, Fla., Mark, of Burbank, Calif., and David, of Pompano Beach; a brother, Harry C., of Southhold, L.I., and a sister, Margaret, of Massapequa, L.I.

1973 Annual meeting hightlights

I have not yet located a copy of the 1973 annual report but here is the highlight of the annual meeting, probably the last one held in Yonkers "auditorium".      You can read the entire content of the report HERE

Polychrome Expansion 1973 and 1975

Doug Chu found news paper articles announcing expansion of Polychrome in Canada (Nov. 1973) and in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England (Aug, 1975)          (Thanks Doug!)

Polychrome Canada

from the Montreal Gazette Nov. 2, 1973)    Click HERE for details.

Berwick-upon-Tweed factory 

from the Glasgow Herald Aug.12, 1975)    Click HERE for details

Early days of Polychrome R&D

When I joined Polychrome R&D in Oct. 1965, the lab was headed by Mr. Ibert Mellan, a kindly white haired gentle person who authored books on solvents and corrosion resistant inorganic materials.     His background enabled him to patent a zirconium based interlayer system as contrast to 3M's silicate system.       Polychrome used this "C" coating extensively not to infringe 3M patent.    Nevertheless 3M sued Polychrome for an infringement and Polychrome counter sued.      I remember in 1988-67 period, couple of 3M research chemists along with lawyers descended on Ashburton ave. lab for preliminary fact finding mission with court appointed intermediary,  then Columbia University professor Dr. Linford.    (who later joined Polychrome as the research director)      When we argued we did not use silicate but used zirconium compounds, they countered saying they could still detect silicate as silicate is naturally contained in the tap/well water.        The suite lasted more than half a year but ended up in settling out of court.     Our standing joke then was, we received $900.000 from 3M but we paid our lawyer $1M and he promptly retired with his secretary in Florida!.
The first member of the lab I met was Sidney Augarten as he was the one who picked me up in the morning to go to the lab. but he passed away within a year or so before I was able to get to know him well.           Al Taudien came from Argentina and formulated numbers of processing chemicals.      #303 and #305 were developing lacquer for the wipon plate.      When I asked him why he had so many  seemingly nonfunctional ingredients in the formula, he replied "so that we could confuse competition."       Gene Golda was a plate coating formulator and often brought Simon Chu's idea to practice.             Dr. Delos Bown joined Polychrome in 1966.    He came with an impressive credentials such as PhD from MIT and work history at Exxon Research but turned out to be a very hand-on practical person.          When we learned the new positive diazo possibility from Fuji, it was Dr. Bown who worked over time, Saturdays and Sundays to synthesize suitable compounds and then to make enough for production trials.         Working along with him I developed severe lash on my body so I asked Dr. Bown what I should do.      He replied " go home and have a drink, it will go away in the morning."      I dutifully went home and had a glass of beer and the lash was gone the next day.   Later, however, I learned that Dr. Bown was a devoted Mormon and when he said "drink" he meant milk not beer!          Within a year he made me his assistant so that in my late twenties, I had an impressive title of Assistant Director of Research.        Little I knew that this title would not change for a long time.    

Annual Report 1972

So many young faces !!! .........     Click HERE to view the entire contents.

Grand Opening of Columbus WCM in 1991

After evaluating various locations such as Yardsville, NJ and others, the company finally settled on the Columbus, GA as the future location for the Plate production.      
The plant still stands as the only production line in US for the succeeding Kodak Co.    
See the grand opening ceremony.

Polyworld Vol 2 no 2 Summer '84

See " Computer -to- Plate Speeds News to Business" article on page 2 and 3.      Peggy Otis from R&D  won the naming contest for the new negative plate...Quantum.      News from Germany and England (Berwick).      168 names listed o the service awards.       Click HERE to view all the contents.

Dr. Seiichi Ooba, former Fuji Photo executive

Perhaps Dr. Seiichi Ooba is not well known to many Polychromers, but he has played an important role in Polychrome's history.        In mid 1950 when he was in charge of Fuji Photo Film's new business development department, he has determined that they should license the presensitized printing plate technology and came to Polychrome.           Fuji was aware that 3M was the dominant player in US but they refused to license Fuji.        They found key patents by Polychrome, one on interlayer treatment by Ibert Mellan and the other a stabilizing overcoat reaction by Simon Chu and these patents were the reason they became aware of Polychrome as the potential source of the plate technology.         It was reported that the R&D group within Fuji told Dr. Ooba that they would be ready to come out with their own technology within a few years.       Dr. Ooba made a decision that the head start in Japan in plate production would be the key to lead the Japanese market and that they should not wait for the internal development and persuaded everyone to come to Polychrome.      He was proven to be right; within a few years of licensing arrangement, Fuji became the dominant supplier in Japan and helped the growing printing industry in Japan.        He passed away peacefully this winter at the age of 99 a few short days away from reaching 100.

Those who joined Polychrome later questioned the wisdom of licensing Fuji to create a strong competition, but we all should know that the arrangement gave a tremendous boost to Polychrome in recognition, financial rewards (towards the end of second term of licensing, licensing income was over a million dollars per year) and the engineering know how we received from Fuji.        

Polychrome luncheon on Sept 2012 Audio

We forgot to take a group picture on our get together on Sept. 29th 2012, but here is the audio record of everyone making a few minutes of updating.

(while listening you can multitask to read Polyworld and other documents)

As Bob Hallman said at the beginning, we all joined Polychrome but we never left.   Our memory of a good company during our youth lives on.

Annual Report 1971

Mr. Halpern's photo posted in the first page of this blog was taken from this report (page 3)
Click HERE to view the entire contents.

Annual Report 1970

Very upbeat 1970 Annual Report, click HERE to read all the contents.

Herald Statesman, April 17, 1968

Herald Statesman (remember!?) article courtesy of Doug Chu

Polychrome Announces Plans 

For New Central Laboratory 

.
Mr. Halpern said his company is "in Yonkers to stay and help build a more prosperous  city." 
He proposed a community project to maintain and improve the quality of industry, improve present and create future educational and vocational institutions, attract competent teachers, provide means and tools for teaching, trades, plan a program of on-the-job training and establish facilities geared to young men returning from military service.     He said Polychrome is ready to be part of such a project.


Mr. Halpern said Polychrome has six locations in the United States and two overseas and its executives  " are located within a 20  mile  radius of Yonkers." 
Mr. Graves said Polychrome's growth in the 1950s was spearheaded by expansion of the Gestetner Corp. here. 
"Yonkers has become the center of the mimeograph stencil duplicating industry in the U.S.since we believe we produce more stencils than  anyone  else in the country and hopefully Gestetner (KS note; Polychrome's biggest customer, Gestetner sold mimeographic stencil masters under their own label ) sells more stencil duplicating machines than anyone  else ," he said.  
He said the 34 -year-old firm has 12.000  active customers, many of whom operate entire printing plants exclusively with Polychrome products. He said Polychrome is one of the country's leading inventor and producers of presensitized plates designed for the lithographic printing industry and the plates were developed by the technological staff here.
The plant  here  has 300 employees, including 17 chemists, while Polychrome  has 500 other employees in  subsidiaries and its direct  sales organization of 32 offices and warehouses.




Actual newspaper page can be found here.    Click HERE.

Polyworld Vol 2 No 1 Spring 84

In this issue, Simon Chu celebrates his 25th year service with his memorable " Change " keynote address at the service award luncheon.       Click  HERE  to view all the articles and photos in this issue.