Early days of Clark R&D

Start up of Clark film production was a disaster in retrospect.         It brew up when DIC tried to market the Clark produced film in Japan.             Upset by the outcome DIC decided to send R＆D personnel to Clark to help improve the quality.         I was asked to be the interim/temporary research director till a new permanent director was found.      Joe Piot probably thought I would be a good care taker of Japanese contingent.         I also had the advantage of having a degree in photographic science and having worked for the oldest (and smallest ) photographic company in Japan so that I was familiar with the photographic emulsion.           I found out quickly that the technology we had was a DuPont type random grain silver halide emulsion and that the market  was moving quickly to Kodak and Fuji type cubic crystal emulsion.          Gene Wilkerson who came form DuPont and till then led the group was a brilliant eccentric and was focused his eyes to up and coming Daylight Handling Film and auto positive film both of which commanded higher profit margin than ordinary litho film.              He eventually developed both product successfully.       But the development of cubic crystal was done by Jon da Silva, another eccentric chemist from Brazil,  and his devoted and capable assistant Penny Mullen.   DIC invested heavily in manpower and the several chemists stationed in Clark together with their visiting consultant from Japan worked hard to develop cubic crystal emulsion of their own.           After a couple years of parallel development we set a deadline date to review both approaches and all agreed that the unconventional approach Jon da Silva came up with produced better results with more stability.     Both Rapid Access film and regular litho film were made using this cubic crystal and revamped the entire Clark product line while during the three years I was involved.         Since Gene was nocturnal and I was a part time director, daily chore of keeping everyone busy and productive fell on the shoulder of capable  John Pilot, who with his quiet demeanor and in depth knowledge of technology was highly regarded and respected by everyone.        Steve Gallo played an important role as the bridge person between R＆D and production.        Since we did not have a pilot coater, he had to manage and keep a good relationship to fit our production trial done well and on time.         Although not part of R&D, Victor Tkaczenko was a key player in new product development.       His technical service department served as in house customer or a quick and also often an in depth evaluation of freshly produced products.