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ASPT Member Biography

Joe Clarke
Inducted into the Academy in 1996

After having been in the screen print industry for 32 years, Joe authored the first book written on four-color process screen-printing, has given hundreds of seminars, writes regularly for four trade magazines and has been honored with three Swormstedt Awards. Joe has had the opportunity to gain expertise in many areas, such as ink formulation, press and equipment design, screen mesh, and emulsion development, to name a few. This in-depth background and scientific approach has allowed Joe to co-develop the first screen print system called the System of Base Line Specifications.

Business Accomplishments

1967—69 McHenry Plastics
Learned plastic sign manufacturing: vacuum forming, mold assembly, color matching, masking techniques and spray-painting.

1969 —77 Clarke's Screen Printing
Owner /Operator of a company that printed athletic and promotional garments, Litho transfers, small format decals, posters etc.

• Designed and built first equipment – manual numbering press and infrared dryer.

1977 —78 American Equipment
This is the equipment division of Advance Process Supply Company. Began as a Sales Representative.

• Sold capital equipment, set up service department and functioned as first Equipment Service Manager for the firm's headquarters.

• Co-developed Texair Dryer.

1978 —79 Graphic Service Co.
Litho printer, acted as GM / Production Manager . Left after one year to return to screenprinting industry.

1979 —83 Advance Process
At the time, the largest screen print supplier/manufacturer in the world. Started as a Field Sales Representative in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area. Left after five years for a more active role in a company and a more lucrative territory.

• Field-tested ESP ink series for the technical director of Excello inks.

1983 —84 Jay Products Co.
Sales Representative for an independent distributor of screen-printing supplies and equipment. Sold supplies and equipment in Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania areas.

1984 —89 Flexible Products Co.
Conceived and launched the industry's first color matching system —PC System.

• Designed & engineered mixing equipment.

• Improved quality of formulations & compounding processes.

• Formulated HST series of inks.

• Developed three new product lines.

• Doubled productivity.

• Conceived and launched Aeroflex division of Wilflex inks.

• Designed the Autoflex automatic adhesive applicator.

• Designed and built Aeroflex, ergonomic squeegee.

• Drove profits from $3.2m at 12% pretax to $27m at 28% pretax in six years.

1989 —91 M&R Manufacturing

• Design presses: Predator Belt Printer and Formula Press .

• Design the Equalizer stretching system.

• Designed the Eliminator dryer.

• Designed and marketed a composite squeegee blade, the 60/90 .

1991 —97 QSOM - Quantitative Systems for Operations Management

• Designed mesh for Swiss mills.

• Developed ink line for T.W. Graphics.

• Developed and produced heat seal, multi color, retro-reflective decal for Air Waves Inc.

• Developed pricing software package for Molecule Inc., Chicago, Illinois.

1996 —97 Demco Inc.
Began as a consulting project that turned into full time commitment for almost a year, functioning as GM for a garment printer.

• Established pre print label called Redtail that took them to the next level in print quality.

• Won several industry awards using my processes.

1994 —96 Blazer Screen Print
Began as a consulting project for a garment printer that eventually required full time commitment.

• Developed a proprietary garment printing process which I coined Photo Realism .

• Won several Golden Squeegee Awards with Photo Realism .

1996 —97 Chicago Decal Co.

• Custom formulated all UV inks to produce high-resolution four-color process decals at the maximum printing speed of the cylinder press.

• Created transforms and algorithms used to insure color balance on press.

• Designed registration system for cylinder, web and flatbed presses.

• Established & implemented square mesh, balanced tensioning methods.

• Designed patentable process for printing temperature sensitive appearingdisappearing images.

• Brought production to capability of printing 150 Lpi four-color process.

1997 —Present First Aid Ltd.
Technical Director for a Chicago based consulting firm that specializes in separation technology, equipment design, custom ink formulations, print processes, production work flow, print analysis and implementation for the screen print industry.

• Developed HiRes AccuColor imaging for JV partner that lead to printing award winning images and various industry awards.

• Co-developed Map software, a production software package that calculates specifications for printing a process job, based on variable data.

• Engineered parameters for computer masking program.

• Developed patentable heat transfer ink system.

• Design variable durometer squeegee for co-development project with M&R.

• Co-authored “Troubleshooting the Process Color Print "

• Co-developed balanced screen mesh tensioning algorithms.

• Developed multi-grid angling concept and algorithms to eliminate moiré in the process color print.

• Co-developed split wavelength separation process as an alternative to Hi-Fi and Hexachromatic color gamuts.

• Co-developed white-plate underbase separation technique for accurate interpretation and representation of Luminosity and Saturation fields of process color.

• Currently working on 2 lenticular development projects: garments and posters. Both containing patentable aspects.

PATENTS & INVENTIONS

1972 Awarded patent for manual numbering press.

1983 Designed an Exposure Computer and sold distribution rights to Autotype America.

1985 Awarded patent for ergonomic squeegee design.

1986 Awarded patent for automatic adhesive applicator.

1988 Awarded patent for automatic screen stretcher.

1989 Awarded patent for automatic press sequencing mode.

1992 Awarded patent for retro reflective ink.

INDUSTRY AWARDS & HONORS

1985 Swormstedt Award— Annual international award for the best technical article published during the year. Won for a seven-part series on four-color process printing.

1990 Swormstedt Award—Received second award for seven-part series called "Woven Nylon Imprinting"

1996 Screen Printing Technical Foundation—Appointed to Research Council (Elite group of technicians chosen by peers to develop goals, plan & initiate projects to explain the mysteries of screen printing.)

1997 Screen Print Technical Foundation—Appointed to the Academy (Select group of 35 members internationally, elected by their peers, for demonstrating technical expertise and a long term history of technical contributions to the industry.).

2002 Swormstedt Award—Received third award for seven part series on lenticular printing.