We are thrilled to announce our two new, highly experienced colleagues who are taking on brand new, key positions at Luminochem.
First of all, let me introduce Thomas Poe, our new US Representative.
Many people already know his name in the pigment industry, as he has been playing a key role in the lives of the companies that shape the market for almost forty years.
He began his career in 1973 at Hilton Davis, a producer of organic and trans oxide pigments. From 1975-1981 he was in charge of the color lab for Aristech Acrylics.
In 1980 a big opportunity arrived and he was asked by a former colleague at Aristech to help him form Angstrom Technologies based on pigment technology purchased from original patent holder, Natmar in Cincinnati Ohio. Bill ran the administrative side of things in the early days, Thomas made the pigments in a pilot plant and he also did all of the QC work in the laboratory as well as marketing and sales.
1987-1995 He became Regional Sales and P&L Manager at Seegott Inc, a major regional chemical raw materials distributor located in Cleveland.
1995-2010 He Joined Palmer Holland mid-year and he was once again, a regional sales manager with P&L responsibilities in the Midwest.
In December 2010 Angstrom Technologies discovered that he had taken an early retirement from Palmer Holland and offered him a position as Director of Business Development. He handled some domestic account and worked the USA as a missionary salesman and found several new customers. He managed to convince Angstrom management and their BOD that their growth was in Europe, and they finally allocated funds for him to start exhibiting at venues such as the SDW and events held by Reconnaissance International, as well as Label Expo.
After retiring from Angstrom, Thomas did consulting for them, Toyal, and an unnamed chemical distributor. He Served on the advisory board of the IMI.
Basically, Thomas was in the pigment business his entire career: organics, iron oxides, metallics, fluorescent, phosphorescent, dyes, dispersions, flushes, trans oxides, cadmiums, lithopone’s etc. He also worked with plant equipment such as high-speed dispersers, three roll mills, reactors, not to mention most laboratory apparatus.
Thomas’s role at Luminochem will be to help the company break into the US market and help to consolidate our position in this competitive sector.
With his excessive knowledge of the UV fluorescent pigment market and his extensive network of contacts, friends, and business partners, Thomas is the best candidate for this position and it is the perfect challenge for him to prove his skills again and build something special.
Another key position was assigned lately at Luminochem: the role of the Chief Business Development Officer. As Luminochem is undergoing a revolutionary development process, with a new investor group that gives us stable financial background, we needed an expert that gives us the intellectual background.
In Géza Imre we found the perfect candidate for the role as he got a significant past in the security printing industry.
From 1989 to 1999 Géza was working at the Hungarian Special Service for National Security as a Development team leader. During this time, he was working on the chemical analysis of security documents, drugs and explosives, development of document protection materials and was appointed as a judicial expert in 1996. In the same year he took an important role in the making of the new Hungarian passport contributing to the development of its security features.
In 1999 Géza started a long journey at ANY Security Printing Company and worked there as a Document Security Expert until 2021. At this time, he gained priceless experience as his tasks and responsibilities included developing security pigments, security inks and security paper additives. What’s more, Géza contributed to development projects of security toners and instrumental testing procedures.
Best examples of his achievements and thorough knowledge of the market that he took vital roles in several development projects in the ID industry.
He took part in for the development of the Hungarian ID and Driving Licence in 2001. In 2002 he took a leading role in developing the Hungarian Vehicle Registration document. Later, in 2015 he was in the development team in the Hungarian e-ID project.
As a security industry expert, Géza also wrote insightful studies, and he often presented his results at the most relevant conferences around the world.
Let’s see some of his most important studies and presentations:
- Security concepts and solutions of new Hungarian security documents (Intergraf 2001 Sorrento)
- Developments in the secure personalisation of paper-based documents using ink-jet technology (Intergraf 2006 Rhodes)
- Security elements of Hungarian identity documents, their control, detection of forgery (2003 Budapest)
- Newly developed DOD security ink-jet inks based on pigment
nano-dispersions (Intergraf 2010 Barcelona) - UV and Recent developments in security inks (2011 Zagreb)
- IR Barcodes – Protection for Invisible Printed Data (Tax Stamp Forum Dubai 2014)
- Passports and other identity documents (Budapest, High Security Conference, 2015, pre-conference workshop)
- The New Hungarian eID (Bogota 2017 eID Conference)
- How Security Inks and Unique ID on Tax Stamps Offer Security in Compliance with the EU Directive (Tax Stamp Forum Nairobi 2018)
- The Cost of Security – Possibilities for finding new security solutions (Tax Stamp Forum Budapest 2019)
- Security document elements in practice (study and presentation)
- Border Control Aspects of Document Security, University of Public Service, (Budapest 2019)
With that kind of vast knowledge, it is clear that he can easily approach the upcoming problems from our customers’ point of view, and this is essential for Luminochem’s continuous product and solution development strategy.
Hiring these two dedicated men will definitely open up new ways for Luminochem’s growth strategy. During our journey of development, we will strengthen our international position and we will gain more and more satisfied customers from new countries and whole new segments. Thank you, Thomas and Géza for joining us on our journey, welcome to the Luminochem Team!