The wrong picture: Kodak and their 30 year slide into bankruptcy

As Eastman Kodak begins to adapt to the challenges of bankruptcy, David A. Glocker's company, Isoflux, is expanding - thanks to technology he developed in Kodak's research labs. He didn't steal anything. In fact, before he founded Isoflux with Kodak's blessing in 1993, Glocker approached his managers at the company and suggested they market the coating process he had developed.

"In a nutshell, I went to them and said, 'I think this is valuable technology and it's not being commercialized ... I'd like to do that if Kodak is not interested,'" he recalls. "And they said, 'Fine, do it.'"

So he did, in his spare time, for five years while still working at Kodak, then full-time after leaving in 1998. Today, several patents and innovations later, Isoflux is a growing company in Rochester, N.Y., that coats a range of three-dimensional products, from drill bits to optical lenses to medical devices ... READ MORE

Released by Knowledge@Wharton February 2012