Eastman Kodak continues to look for ways to expand its ventures into specialty chemicals and pharmaceutical-related products while maintaining more traditional business lines.
Two of the company’s top officials, Executive Chairman and CEO Jim Continenza and Chief Technical Officer Terry Taber, recently were interviewed by WXXI News about some of the company’s goals in the near term.
Both emphasized the growth potential for some of the more recent initiatives, as well as revenues still coming in for the company’s legacy products like film and technologies for the commercial printing market.
Kodak is now working on outfitting a new lab and manufacturing facility that will open in an existing building in 2025 at the Eastman Business Park. It will include a focus on components used in pharmaceuticals as well as reagents, which are chemicals that can be used in medical testing.
Continenza did not disclose a specific cost for the new lab and manufacturing facility but indicated that it is "in the tens of millions of dollars."
When Kodak was talking about this initiative several years ago, one motivation was trying to make more of these types of products in the U.S. instead of having to import them from other countries.
Continenza said that is still part of the goal, especially when looking back at challenges that the U.S. health systems faced during the pandemic.
“COVID taught us a few things," he said. "Every country looks out for themselves first. Well, you’ve got to have the ability to do that, and look, we’re not going to be able to make everything, but it’s a leap in the right direction, and I’m sure there will be more of this, I hope, because this country cannot be subject to other countries to supply us everything.”
The CEO said it gets back to what he sees as a need to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S.
“Kodak is a phenomenal global company, but we’re an American business, and we’re bringing these technologies and stuff back to the U.S. where they belong,” Continenza said.
On the legacy front, both Continenza and Taber talked about the importance of film, which was the genesis of the Rochester-based company. It may not be as big a part of overall revenues as it once was, but Continenza noted it is a profitable business.
Kodak this month temporarily shut down a film manufacturing facility in Rochester so they can modernize the operation.
Taber said the shutdown has been planned for a while.
“We actually started planning this over a year ago, because we were upgrading two things: the air handling system, which also does the dehumidification for the building, and for the air supply, going into the coating machine,” he said.
Taber said the darkroom facility that is being modernized manufactures a variety of films.
“Motion picture films, still films, for consumers, industrial films; all the films that we make, the films for printed circuit boards, that’s an industrial film,” Taber said.
Kodak employs around 1,200 to 1,300 people in Rochester, and Continenza said the company is still looking to fill jobs. He said the company is stepping up its recruiting and apprenticeship programs.
“We put a lot of pride in our quality, Kodak has an expectation, and it’s excellence,” Continenza said, “so we have to always deliver on that. We’re held to a different standard.”
