March 6, 1999

TO CATAPULT U.S. TO TOP OF COMPUTER MONITOR INDUSTRY

ROCHESTER, New York—Irondequoit resident Robert D. Gengelbach is pleased to announce that Illumitech Inc. will partner with Welch Allyn as part of a $4 million research and development contract for a lamp system expected to dramatically alter the current technology and allow the United States to gain dominance in the computer monitor industry.

Funding for the R & D program comes from a $2 million contract awarded to Welch Allyn by the United States Display Consortium (USDC), a cooperative, industry-government effort aimed at developing an infrastructure to support a flat panel display industry in the United States. Illumitech and Welch Allyn, a Skaneateles, N.Y.-based manufacturer of precision lighting systems, are funding the remaining $2 million.

Illumitech Inc., with offices in Irondequoit and Chicago, will produce the collection optics for the lamp system, initially targeted to the computer monitor industry. According to Illumitech’s Vice President Robert D. Gengelbach, "The resulting new lamp system, expected to be completed by April 2000, is intended to replace the cathode ray tube system in current use, producing rear-projection lighting that is more compact, economical, efficient, and user-friendly. This is a major coup for Illumitech and we are honored and thrilled to be involved in an optical innovation that has the potential to catapult the US to the top of a highly competitive industry."

Illumitech was founded in 1996 to commercialize the non-imaging optical design technology developed by Professor Roland Winston at the University of Chicago. The company provides custom components and consulting services to customers whose products need light-collection solutions that dramatically outperform off-the-shelf components.

Illumitech was co-founded by Vice President and Director of Engineering Robert D. Gengelbach, a former Lab Director in Eastman Kodak’s Office Imaging Division. Gengelbach oversees testing of Illumitech’s designs and components in the company’s Irondequoit laboratory.

The company’s two other principals are President Ben Jacobson, who invented Illumitech’s projection illumination technology and leads optical design and marketing; and Roland Winston, Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, the fundamental inventor of non-imaging optics, and author if its standard textbook.

Rochester Contact:  

Robert Gengelbach,

VP, Illumitech Inc.

4785 St. Paul Blvd.

Rochester, N.Y. 14617

Phone: 716-544-6997

Fax: 716-544-9572