by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine In a dramatic restructuring that will allow employee-owned Chroma Technology Corp in Bellows Falls to take advantage of rapidly expanding international markets, the company announced today that former IBM-GlobalFoundries leader Janette Bombardier has accepted the newly created position of Chief Engineering Officer.
Chroma CEO Paul Millman said Bombardier is a dynamic leader and manufacturing expert and licensed professional engineer. Bombardier said she is looking forward to helping to drive Chroma's worldwide growth while leading the company's engineering and technical functions. At IBM/GlobalFoundries, Bombardier was not only the company's senior site location executive; she also had a wide breadth of technical, management, leadership and continuous improvement positions.
"One area of our business is exploding," Millman told VBM, "autonomous vehicles." He envisions Bombardier with her expertise and enthusiasm for manufacturing to help them take advantage of this new opportunity.
These vehicles require many sophisticated mirrors, Millman said, which fits well into Chroma's expertise in optics. He said what IBM/GF does also fits well.
"We do something similar to IBM, we work with thin films," he said. In developing the integrated circuits (chips) at IBM/GF, lithography is crucial.
Janette Bombardier
Bombardier comes to Chroma from Green Mountain Power where she was a Senior Vice President leading Commercial and Industrial relations as well as cost performance initiatives.
“Chroma Technology is a great company and I am excited to be part of the executive leadership team,” Bombardier said. “I'm also happy to be back in a technically challenging technology development and manufacturing company, one that has a true focus on customer success. The commitment of the organization to its employee-owners and its support of the community are values that I respect and are important to me.”
Chroma, which is feeling the tug of growth potential in a new technological age, is thrilled to have Bombardier join its executive team, said Millman.
“Over the years, we at Chroma have basically made up how we produce things as we go along,” Millman said. “We've made up the steps. Now the world of optical filters is changing dramatically. Everything that is new in the world involves light. Agricultural drones, autonomous vehicles, cell phone displays, point-of-care medical test systems, robots — it all involves light and color. These industries, vehicles, cell phones and the people in them want millions of filters. Not hundreds or even thousands, but millions. Janette Bombardier’s expertise presents us with an opportunity to get more efficient and better at what we do and grow even more.”
“This will change how we do things,” Millman said. “Production needs to be done in logical steps without bottlenecks. The process has to flow smoothly to deliver the product to our customers. To have someone with Janette's kind of experience rationalize the production is a great opportunity. We need to get better at what we do because we have much more business than we had.”
Millman said he's known Bombardier for years, first through the Vermont Business Roundtable. He said he met with her in March about possibly working with Chroma.
"She had a glint in her eyes," he said, at the opportunity to come back to manufacturing. Things moved quickly, Millman said, and she accepted an offer last week.
Bombardier became the senior location executive at IBM in July 2010 and continued in that role when GlobalFoundries bought that part of IBM's semiconductor business in June 2015. She then moved to GMP as senior VP in April 2017. She had originally joined IBM in 1980 out of college. She led the construction of the bridge that spans the Winooski River between Williston and Essex Junction at the now GF campus. The bridge has since been named for her.
GMP CEO Mary Powell told VBM: “We are excited for Janette. Chroma is one of Vermont’s most innovative technology and manufacturing companies."
Chroma, founded in Brattleboro 27 years ago, reported 2017 revenues of $31.6 million. It currently employs 136 people. The company manufactures optical filters for the scientific, biomedical, photonics and imaging and detection industries. The filters and mirrors that Chroma manufactures are used in microscopes, DNA sequencers and clinical diagnostic devices, among other applications. The company has a worldwide customer base with established offices in Europe and Asia. The companyrecently opened up a new, 28,000-square-foot clean manufacturing addition to its Rockingham, Vermont plant.
Chroma also owns and manages a subsidiary, 89-North, soon to move to Williston, VT, 20 Winter Sport Lane. It specializes in innovative products for biomedical imaging. Bombardier, Millman said, will not be relocating and will have an office in Williston and in Bellows Falls.