IJP 1000, Bob Hallman and Victor Lopez... way ahead of time

Bob Hallman was a special kind of Research Director.    Unlike his predecessors  at Polychrome,  he came with experience in various and broad discipline such as business, marketing, consulting, etc.     Having run his own company must have developed his keen sense of customer needs.      He often tried to cultivate good relationship with customers so that he can anticipate future customer needs and also provide assistance where needed immediately.         He generally directed R&D through his informal talk about his visits to customers and what he told them to watch out.         We listened carefully and tried to come up with a solution to meet his and customers' expectation for  future products.        His leadership can be found in Polychrome's drive towards digital platemaking, non process platemaking and others.         The platemaking through inkjet technology was in his list of future technology.     We had collaboration with Sun Chemical R&D group to develop suitable technology.     There was also Victor Lopez.       He was in the marketing department but he had a keen eyes and interests in new technology.         We became quite close through various start up projects which he loved and Bob approved of.         One of the project was the platemaking system using inkjet technology.      He identified a company in West Coast with large format inkjet imaging system capability and worked hard to modify it into a platemaking system.         The IJP-1000 with  large format...30 x 40 inch plate size was thus born and market tested.       Unfortunately the technology was still in its infancy and the precision and resolution needed for such platemaking was lacking.        We moved on to focus rapidly expanding thermal platemaking technology.           Viktor also moved on to have his own company applying the inkjet technology to a new field of digital silkscreen printing platemaking.         Bob was right in predicting the growth of inkjet technology.        While not during the Polychrome days, it is flourishing in various areas of printing today.           We can say that we were there first!