Thursday, February 1, 2018

Dr. Ken Kuhn

Dr. Ken Kuhn appeared to Polychrome suddenly in 1979 soon after the DIC takeover  as the head of research laboratory but without any background in graphic arts industry.          His effort was centered around organizing thick reports on every projects we had.          Since Polychrome laboratory had been more focused on results rather than writing reports, I must admit our record keeping was less than ideal.      So we reluctantly (perhaps) started to prepare thick reports which he brought to the management meetings to show the "progress".           But the combination of his lack of understanding of our business and his interest in following rigid structure made him not the most liked R&D director in our history.        Since I was still the Assistant Research Director I had an opportunity to hear his view of our staff and his interest in getting rid of one particular senior person who made considerable contribution to Polychrome but simply showed his dislike of Dr. K.           Possibly as the result of my complaint to Mr. Iwata of DIC, Dr. K was abruptly dismissed right in the middle of DRUPA in Dusseldorf when Mr. Kawamura came to meet us on the boat hotel we rented for the duration of the show.
Clearly Dr. K was a successful businessman judging from his bio    HERE  but we were simply not ready for the "big company" operation he (and Joe Piot) tried to bring in.