Mr. Teruhiko Yonezawa wondered why a shiny aluminum plate could be imaged, processed and made to run on a printing press. He was evaluating 3M plates at Fuji Film research lab. He soon found from his research and from patent documents that the secret was in the treatment of aluminum with silicate. It was in late 1950's and the Japanese market was poised to undergo a huge technology change from wet plate/deep etch combination to litho film and presensitized plate. Fuji wanted to be the first in Japan to break into the market but unfortunately 3M already had a general partner. Mr. Yonezawa's group then found Polychrome's zirconium interlayer patent. Although he was confident he was able to come up with a technology not covered either by 3M or Polychrome, Dr. Ooba then in charge of new business overrode him to seek license from Polychrome. Mr. Yonezawa was the leader of the technology transfer team who descended in Yonkers for weeks to learn details of the plate technology. On his return, he became the head of Fuji Plate R&D, starting first in Odawara factory where Fuji's first production line was built and then to Fuji Yoshida factory, then probably the world most advanced plate manufacturing plant. Although one can count numerous technology advancement under his leadership his most significant contribution to the world may be the fact he coined the term "PS plate", a shortened version of "presensitized printing plate", now used world wide. On his retirement he summarized his life work in a book called "PS plate technology", one of the very few books on presensitized plate's history and technology. Here is a couple of photos from one of our annual technology exchange meetings, this one in 1978.
Mr. Yonezawa is far right with Gene Golda, me, Konrad Richter and Simon Chu.
Here, Mr. Yonezawa with me.
