logo.jpg Eastman Kodak, referred to colloquially as "Kodak," is a large multinational corporation founded in Rochester by George Eastman, with corporate headquarters in downtown Rochester, near High Falls. Kodak also maintains research facilities and some manufacturing in Kodak Park, near the City of Rochester-Greece Border on Lake Ave and Ridge Road, and other locations throughout the area.

Eastman Kodak has primarily dealt with photographic products, but has, in the past expanded into other areas, such as batteries, photocopiers, medical imaging, and chemicals. While many of these ventures failed, the chemical divison, headquarted in Kingsport, TN, was successful enough to be spun off in 1994, and is today a thriving company and one of the world's leading sources of polymeric materials.

Kodak has also seen many other failures in its history, including

It has been said that Eastman Kodak also failed to realize the potential of the digital imaging boom in the late 1990s. This is somewhat true, as Kodak did not begin to market digital cameras until the market was fairly established. However, Kodak has become the #1 seller of digital cameras in the United States, with 24% of the market share1. Kodak has also applied its vast knowledge of photographic print displays to the inkjet and digital photograpic printing field.

The recent growth in Kodak digital imaging, notwithstanding, Kodak's worldwide employment base has shrunk dramatically in the past ten years2, and this has been felt especially here in Rochester, where Kodak had been the top employer for many years. Whole plants have been closed (such as Kodak Elmgrove in Gates) or divisions have been sold off (such as the Space and Aerial Imaging division, located at Kodak Hawkeye on St. Paul Street 3). Indeed, even Kodak Park, which operated much like a small city unto itself, has been greatly reduced as its intended purpose, the manufacture of film and photo paper, has become almost obsolete. Even with all this downsizing, Kodak remains the #2 employer in the Rochester area4, but it will most probably never regain the level of employment that it had in the late 1980s.