ASF co-founder works hard to create smiles

"Most of the technology came out of my darkroom one way or another. I'm really a photographer, but I became an electrical engineer because I wanted to do electronic imaging back in the `70s.

One day I took a 4-by-5 negative to a drug store to try and get a print. They said they could take care of it, no problem. But several weeks later they told me they couldn't make a print with that negative. On top of that, they folded the negative and damaged it in the process. I thought to myself, if I can scan it this way, I can take out the defects from the damage. That realization led to what became our Digital ICE technology."

"We were struggling through, developing the technology in the early days as employees of IBM, when we were fortunate to meet [current CEO] Mark Urdahl. When we couldn't succeed any further through IBM at that time, Mark took us under his wing and was able to negotiate a spinout from IBM. We had no money, but we all jumped off that cliff together.

Our early funding was from family and friends, which we went on for some time. One of us got a fortune cookie one day that said `You will come into riches soon.' It was right. [Technology Crossover Ventures, Centerpoint Ventures and others have contributed more than $37 million in funding to ASF over the past two years.]"

"Getting people to believe what we can do has been a big challenge. That's part of the reason why it took so long to get funding. People thought that obviously no one can take defects out of film, and they've spent a lot of time on math proofs showing that these things couldn't be done.

What we've done is ignored the math, turned off the targeting computer and gone in fast and low to try to get that first golden harpoon into the dragon. People would say these are dragons you can't slay, problems you can't solve, but in a few months we find ourselves having dragon steaks."

"I'm fairly nearsighted, so I've found all sorts of uses for my glasses. I use my glasses as a spectroscope, because if you look over the top you can split light rays into a spectrum to tell a lot about the light source. I also take my glasses and wiggle them up and down on my head to create a strobe effect. I've used that to figure out the refresh rates on displays. I was at a restaurant the other day looking at the cash register display and started jiggling my glasses. People started inching away from me.

I also have a stereo microscope that I use all the time. Give me a pizza, some nice music and a stereo microscope and I can be lost for hours. For children, you can show them very small insects up close, to make them aware of the fragility of life. I think every home should have one."

"Since grade seven, every one of my science teachers would either die or retire after one year of teaching me. I guess Wayne Galella, the first manager at IBM who actually stuck in there, was one of my first mentors.

Then there's Jack Phipps. We met while students at the University of Oklahoma. On a Friday, he was helping me solder together my Ph.D. project, and that Saturday, he was the best man in my wedding."

"I have to make beauty. With my wedding photos I try to make images that bring good tears to the brides' eyes. One of the reasons I moved from physics to engineering was to be closer to people, to create things that effected people right away. At the end of the day, I look at the people, and it's the smiles I can make that matter to me."