Imaging Engineer and Remanufacturing Fighter Remembered

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Imaging Engineer and Remanufacturing Fighter Remembered

Tricia Judge (right) and Lester Cornelius in Japan in 1998. Judge was his business partner and wife. She said, “It’s been 10 years since Lester passed in September 2011, but there isn’t a day that he’s not remembered for being so passionate about remanufacturing and life. He will always be my soulmate.”

When Lexmark announced the Prebate program in 1996, Lester Cornelius (pictured with Tricia Judge) recognized it immediately as an industry-killing effort.

He went to Albany to see if he could get New York legislators to take action against the program.

Cornelius was the founder and president of Optical Technologies (OTC) in Long Island City, New York. He met N.Y. Assemblyman (now U.S. Congressman) Joe Morelle.  The two men worked together for the rest of Cornelius’ life to keep the aftermarket safe in New York, and procurement policies honest there as well.

He didn’t stop with New York. Cornelius led the anti-prebate fight across the country and beyond.

He was also instrumental in founding the industry’s North American trade association, the International Imaging Technology Council.  He was its first chairman.

Cornelius also served as president of the Remanufacturing Industries Council, and founding chairman of STMC (the Standardized Test Methods Committee). For the latter, he wrote the STMC Guide, which is still used today around the globe. He devoted countless hours to industry advocacy and leadership.

The company he had founded, OTC, produced unique protective coatings for plastics, particularly eyewear used in sports and the military.  In the mid-90s, Cornelius was approached about developing coatings for components used in printing, and he developed coatings for blades, OPC drums and other imaging components. In the 1990s, one of his coatings was licensed by Kodak for use in its high-speed copier technology.

Once he had studied the cartridge remanufacturing industry, Cornelius began sharing his findings with its members.  He wrote hundreds of articles for Recharger Magazine, Imaging Spectrum and other industry publications.  He led dozens of seminars at World Expo and association meetings around the globe. He always wanted to make the industry the best it could be and selflessly shared his work product.

He moved his products and his leadership to Remanufacturing Technologies Corp. (RTC) in Las Vegas, Nevada.  He was still active in developing new products and industry advocacy until his death in 2011.

The leadership of both the Association of Japanese Cartridge Remanufacturers and the Int’l ITC came together in mutual support in 1998.

Lester Cornelius (left) met regularly with Joe Morelle (holding The Recycler Trade Magazine) in Albany to make sure N.Y. remanufacturers were getting state business.

N.Y. Assemblyman (now U.S. Congressman) Joe Morelle (left) and Lester Cornelius (third from the right) join Tricia Judge to respond to media questions about the rights of remanufactured and the reman industry.

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