This month marks twenty-five years since I walked into Chemco Photoproducts in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. Most people in the industry barely remember the company, which became part of Konica since late 1987, not long after I left.

I joined the company after its heyday in the 1970s when it played an important role in assisting newspapers in the switch from letterpress to offset. In the early 1980s, it was still doing quite well as third-generation family companies can do, but problems were starting to emerge. There was a time when the company sold almost 75% of the film used in camera rooms in the U.S. newspaper industry; by the time I was there, it was down to about 55%, as best as I could estimate. That strong share in that important niche made it the third largest graphic arts photographic materials manufacturer in the U.S., behind Kodak and DuPont. When I joined, the economy was in the throes of a recession, with high inflation, low growth, and low investment, the three elements of stagflation. Silver prices were still playing a large role in company decisions, with product prices changing every month.

Yet, there was still a dynamism to the industry and the company. A rash of new products (for them) were in the pipeline, including materials like phototypesetting paper (Kodak had more than half of the market), diffusion transfer materials (Agfa had more than half of that market), as well as roomlight handling contact and duplicating films (DuPont was the leading marketer of those products).