Rochester Precision Optics launches ASE Optics Europe

May 17, 2012

Rochester, NY-–Rochester Precision Optics (RPO) and subsidiary ASE Optics have launched ASE Optics Europe to strength its presence with European customers. ASE Optics Europe provides optical engineering and design for technology companies.

Conard Holton

Rochester, NY--Rochester Precision Optics (RPO) and subsidiary ASE Optics have launched ASE Optics Europe to strength its presence with European customers. ASE Optics Europe provides optical engineering and design for technology companies in industries like medical devices, biotechnology, industrial, and automotive.

According to estimates, European companies face a dramatic and increasing deficiency of optical engineers. The investment in programs such as Photonics21 recognizes the growing demand for optics and photonics as enabling technologies. RPO is responding to their customers’ needs with the opening of the ASE Optics Europe office.

“We acquired ASE Optics in 2011,” says RPO President and CEO, Bill Hurley. “Their Discovery Service is an economical way to seek answers fast. We believe that engineering services are key to the end system performance for RPO’s global customers.”

The European office will offer a Discovery Service--20 hours of engineering for euros 1950. The Discovery Service can determine feasibility, define a problem, or even identify a solution to a well-defined problem. ASE Optics Europe offers lens design, lens assembly design and engineering, prototyping, and small volume lenses and assemblies.

Andres Cifuentes, Director of European Sales and Engineering, will lead ASE Optics Europe from the Barcelona office. Cifuentes is the former Manager of SECPhO, the Southern European Cluster in Photonics and Optics, and has worked as the lead optical engineer for technology companies for the past ten years.

Rochester Precision Optics was formed in 2005, when it acquired the manufacturing technology, intellectual properties, and assets from Kodak Optical Imaging Systems. It has offices in Shanghai and in Rochester, where it has over 112,000 square feet of optical manufacturing and specializes in aspheric optics capabilities for optical sub-systems.

About the Author

Conard Holton | Editor at Large

Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.