ANN ARBOR, MI – Rusty Ponce de Leon, president of Phase 1 Technology Corp. (Deer Park, NY) has been elected 2010 chairman of the Automated Imaging Association (AIA).

Ponce de Leon succeeds Mike Cyros, president of Allied Vision Technologies Inc. (Newburyport, MA), whose two-year term as chairman expired on January 21, 2010. Cyros remains on the AIA board as immediate past chairman.

Greg Hollows, director of machine vision solutions at Edmund Optics (Barrington, NJ) was elected as vice chairman, a newly-created board position.

“It is a privilege and an honor to serve as chairman of the AIA board,” says Ponce de Leon. “The organization has had several dedicated and passionate individuals hold this position during the past two decades, and I hope to live up to the legacy they have left. Our outgoing chairman, Mike Cyros, being one of those individuals, has launched several new initiatives to enhance the value of AIA membership. My intention is to build upon these initiatives to expand AIA’s global role as the authority for all vision applications inside and outside of the factory environment. My goal is to generate more awareness for the industry and to promote additional sales for companies that belong to the association.

“As the economy begins a slow recovery, I believe it is imperative that our organization plays an integral part in the rebirth of manufacturing in the U.S. The only way to accomplish this is to be competitive in the global marketplace, and the only way to be competitive is through automation. We are the visual processing component of automation, and therefore, the association must be responsible for making our collective technologies more visible to emerging, as well as existing markets. The staff and the board of AIA are committed to supporting these initiatives.”

“We’ve launched a new Web site, which is more conducive to supporting new and inexperienced customers. It has a much greater marketing capability, and will offer education opportunities later in the year. We are now looking to have members involved in board subcommittees, so more people can contribute and be responsible for long term planning. Last but not least, we will be focusing this year on supporting System Integrators, as they are our first responders to emerging markets, and thus they demonstrate to entire industries the technologies available in solving new and complex applications,” Ponce de Leon explains.

Ponce de Leon, Hollows, and Cyros are joined on the AIA Board by:

Jørgen Andersen, President & CEO, JAI

George Chamberlain, President, Pleora Technologies

Markku Jaaskelainen, Executive Vice President, Cognex Corp.

John Jennings, Chief Commercial Officer, Basler Vision Technologies

John Merva, Executive Vice President, Advanced Illumination

Amir Novini, President/CEO, Applied Vision Corp.

Keith Reuben, President, Dalsa Asia-Pacific

Ed Roney, National Account Manager, Intelligent Robotics, FANUC Robotics America

Peter Tang, VP Innovation Technology, ATS Automation Tooling Systems

Kyle Voosen, Business Development Manager, National Instruments

Founded in 1984, AIA currently represents some 275 machine vision suppliers, distributors, system integrators, end users, consulting firms, and educational institutes. Key AIA activities include sponsorship of The Vision Show (next event set for May 25-27, 2010 in Boston); the annual AIA Business Conference; industry standards such as Camera Link and GigE Vision; the International Robots, Vision & Motion Control Show (next event set for March 21-24, 2011 in Chicago collocated with ProMat); and the annual Machine Vision Industry Directory.