Kodak Film Factory Tour

NSXTypeR

Just in case you guys were interested there’s a factory tour done by Smarter Every Day.



Part one of 3 apparently!

mhedges

Don't have time to watch it now but I will when I can.

I worked at Kodak Park as an engineering intern in the late 90's. It was an amazing place. The scale of it was unbelievable.

NSXTypeR

mhedges said:

Don't have time to watch it now but I will when I can.

I worked at Kodak Park as an engineering intern in the late 90's. It was an amazing place. The scale of it was unbelievable.

Wow, how long did you stay there? I had interviewed for a job in Rochester and briefly rolled through there. I didn't get a chance to tour the city but it must have been cool. Working there must have been like working for Apple now.

Any stories to share?

mhedges

NSXTypeR said:

Wow, how long did you stay there? I had interviewed for a job in Rochester and briefly rolled through there. I didn't get a chance to tour the city but it must have been cool. Working there must have been like working for Apple now.

Any stories to share?

I was there for about a year total in the 1997-1998 timeframe. Worked in the research division, mostly on antistatic backing coatings.

I don't really have much in the way of specific stories but I will say that in general there was a total lack of concern over the threat that digital posed. There was tremendous concern over the competition that Fuji was giving and specifically the perception that they were committing unfair trade practices via government subsidies etc. I believe there was a WTO ruling right around when I started that went against Kodak and folks were bitter about that.

I will say that there was very little to no confidence in the upper management at the time. Which was something that in hindsight certainly appears to be justified. Lots of talk about idiotic asset sales (most prominent Eastman Chemical) for bargain prices. And the layoff that took place when I was there didn't help moral.

Again though the scale of the place was incredible. I wish I spent a couple days just exploring, and I wish they gave interns more in the way of tours. The stuff I did get to see was really cool. I remember one building that was used to store rolls of photographic paper and I almost got vertigo looking out into the storage area because it was so big. It reminded me of a Borg cube from Star Trek.