Industry Pioneers Declared to be Diamonds

Industry Pioneers Declared to be Diamonds

To date, only six people have been nominated by the printer and imaging supplies industry as industry pioneers. A seventh one will be named in September 2021.

Each of the six pioneers has been named following an exhaustive process of nominations and an independent panel of 14 judges from eight countries each year, between 2015 and 2020. Four Americans and two Chinese people have been the recipient of the award to date.

Each pioneer received an industry citation as a Diamond Pioneer, named after Art Diamond, an imaging industry icon who passed away in August 2016.  The recipient of the award in 2019, Mike Josiah, said, “Art Diamond was a legend in the industry throughout my entire career,” Josiah said. “I learned quite a bit about toner and toner manufacturing reading through his seminar information through the years and I cannot thank him enough for that.  Now to be awarded the Diamond Pioneering Award … well, that’s just amazing.”

The names and citations for each pioneer awardee are:

• 2015: Ed Swartz: awarded posthumously to this iconic entrepreneur who passed away on November 4, 2013, aged 77. Swartz was honoured for his tenacity, honesty, courage and innovative engineering ability. He was instrumental in deciphering the first encrypted smart chips and for standing up for cartridge remanufacturing, protecting thousands of jobs and careers.
• 2016: Arnald Ho: for having the insight, tenacity, entrepreneuralism and persistence to be the first cartridge remanufacturer in Asia in 1981, and to be the holder of more than 2,600 imaging patents, more than any other aftermarket printing consumables enterprise in the world.
• 2017: Jackson Wang: for his unique industry insight and professional expertise in building a company in a very short time in China to become a publicly listed Fortune 500 company, to acquire two iconic imaging brands in the USA, being Static Control Components and Lexmark International and to become the first company to be both a printer OEM (Pantum and Lexmark) as well as n aftermarket supplies company..
• 2018: William“Skip” London: for his leadership, support, guidance, long-term visionary insight and common-sense approach—while being at the forefront of major legal efforts to ensure fair competition between the Aftermarket and OEM giants—in your role as chief attorney for Static Control Components since the late 1990s.
• 2019: Mike Josiah: for his tireless, committed, scholarly research, writing and photography that has produced more than 400 easy-to-understand technical articles, which have been translated into numerous languages every month since 1993. These articles explain how to remanufacture even the most complex of toner cartridges and have sustained the jobs and education of thousands in the remanufacturing industry around the globe.
• 2020: Jim Cerkleski: for growing Clover Imaging from small humble beginnings in the fields of Ottawa, Illinois to become the world’s largest provider of OEM quality, remanufactured laser and ink cartridges, printer parts and the world’s largest empties broker, providing consumers with an alternative while keeping the marketplace open and the OEMs in check as a leading Managed Print Services provider for more than 250,000 devices.

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Related:

• Nominations Open for 2021 RT Industry Awards
• 2019: Uninet’s Mike Josiah Awarded Diamond Pioneering Award
• 2018: Static Control’s Skip London Awarded Diamond Pioneering Award
• September 2016: Industry People Pay Tribute to Art Diamond
• November 2013: IN MEMORIAM—Ed Swartz, 1935-2013

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