AIA honors John Stack with 2012 AIA Achievement Award.

Press Release Summary:



John Stack, President of the Optical Systems Division of Zygo Corporation, was presented with 2012 AIA Achievement Award. He is being honored for his industry leadership and outstanding contributions to the vision and imaging industry for more than two decades. Before joining Zygo, Stack served as President and COO of Edmund Optics, Inc. Stack also served as member of AIA Board of Directors from 2001-2004 and was elected Chairperson for 2003-2004 term.



Original Press Release:



John Stack Honored with 2012 AIA Achievement Award



(Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA ) John Stack, President of the Optical Systems Division, for Zygo Corporation, was presented with the 2012 AIA Achievement Award during a ceremony held today at AIA's 20th Annual Business Conference in Orlando, Florida, USA. This prestigious award is the vision and imaging industry's top leadership award.

Stack was nominated by AIA members and was selected from a talented pool of candidates by the AIA Board of Directors. He is being honored for his industry leadership and outstanding contributions to the vision and imaging industry for more than two decades.

Stack served as a member of the AIA Board of Directors from 2001-2004 and was elected Chairperson for the 2003-2004 term. He was also a member of the Board of the Automation Technologies Council, AIA's parent group.

"John was a leader on the AIA Board at a critical time as the association suffered through the impact of the 2001 recession," said Jeff Burnstein, AIA President. "He had the vision to increase investments in association staff and activities at that point, rather than cut back as so many others were doing. As a result, AIA emerged from the recession better able to serve the needs of its members in critical ways, such as the ability to provide in-depth market data by hiring an in-house Director of Market Analysis," Burnstein said.

"John also was an early advocate of AIA's expanded global involvement. He helped members better understand how to go about doing business in China, for instance, through talks he gave at AIA events," Burnstein added.

President of the Optical Systems Division, for Zygo Corporation, since November 2006, Stack also assumed responsibility for the Precision Positioning Solutions and Zygo Vision Systems Business Units starting in 2009. Since joining Zygo, Mr. Stack has been involved in a wide variety of applications providing high precision optical solutions into semiconductor photolithography, aerial reconnaissance, 3D chip inspection, DNA sequencing, intraoral 3D imaging and high energy laser fusion, just to name a few.

Before joining Zygo, Stack served as President and COO of Edmund Optics, Inc. He began as an entry level engineer, eventually working his way to Director of Engineering, then Vice President and eventually President. As an engineer, he developed a passion for lens design and was a driving force behind the early development of industrial imaging at Edmund Optics. He keenly viewed optics and illumination as more than just stand alone products but an enabler to better system performance. Understanding that the future held more advanced sensor development and demanding applications, Stack initiated efforts to develop lens products directed towards the specific needs of machine vision and industrial imaging. He emphasized the need to educate customers and industry, on issues such as improving image quality and proper component selection and system specification. He also advocated the sharing of design information to support system integration. These efforts contributed to the expansion of the imaging industry and became key elements of AIA's educational programs.

Stack is a graduate of the Executive Development program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh.

The annual award, sponsored by the AIA, has been given since 1991 and honors one industry leader for outstanding contributions in promoting market acceptance of industrial and/or scientific imaging. Among the past winners are industry leaders such as Robert Steinke, DVT Corporation; Joseph Christenson, Nonin Medical, Inc.; Toshi Hori, GEViCAM; Don Cochran, Pressco Technology Inc.; David Dechow, Aptúra Machine Vision Solutions; the late Dr. Steven Case, CyberOptics Corporation; Dr.-Ing. Norbert Stein, VITRONICS; Dr. Savvas Chamberlain, DALSA Corporation; Perry West, Automated Vision Systems, Inc.; Amir Novini, Applied Vision Company; Pat Costa, RVSI, Inc.; Nello Zuech, Vision Systems International; the late Stan Karandanis, Datacube; Dwight Carlson, Perceptron; Ken Levy, KLA-Tencor; and Dr. Robert Shillman, Cognex Corporation.

The award is presented each year at the AIA's Business Conference, a members-only event that brings key industry executives together for two and a half days of networking, important machine vision business discussions and presentations that explore emerging markets and new technologies.

About AIA

Founded in 1984 to advance the understanding and use of imaging and vision technologies and to drive global expansion and growth through education and promotion, AIA now represents over 320 vision suppliers, system integrators, users, researchers, and consulting firms from 30 countries. In addition to the vision and imaging standards such as the GigE Vision®, Camera Link® and USB3 Vision(TM), AIA is best-known for The Vision Show (May 8-10, 2012 in Boston); the Automate Show (January 21-24, 2013 in Chicago); the annual AIA Business Conference; and Vision Online (www.visiononline.org), the world's leading online resource for machine vision information.

For more information on AIA, visit www.visiononline.org or contact AIA Headquarters at (734) 994-6088.

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