Dr. John Cheung, Chairman
Dr. Cheung's history with waterjets and abrasive waterjets goes back to the beginning of the modern industry. After graduating with a PhD in Mechanics and Materials, Dr. Cheung started working with waterjets in 1973 as a research engineer in the US Bureau of Mines.
Dr. Cheung led early feasibility studies on abrasivejet cutting and drilling for mining and construction applications, and ten years later was president of Flow Industries (from 1982 to 1987)
In addition to being an accomplished engineer, Dr. Cheung also has extensive business experience, having founded or co-founded:
- ADMAC, Inc. (merged with Flow Systems to form Flow International in 1987)
- UTILX
- FlowDril
- and, of course, OMAX
Dr. Cheung is experienced in product development and managing start-up companies through initial public offering (IPO) of technology based business. Financing projects included seed capital, venture capital, R&D Partnerships, corporate bonds, bank loans and IPO. Management experience includes project management, engineering management and general management as well as start-up, acquisition and divestiture of business entities in foreign countries.
Dr. John H. Olsen, VP of Operations
Key individuals pioneer the future of emerging industries. The waterjet and abrasivejet industry counts Dr. John H. Olsen of the OMAX Corporation among its innovative visionaries.
From the beginning of his career, Dr. Olsen was interested in liquids and how they moved. His 1966 doctoral thesis in the field of Fluid Mechanics at MIT was a harbinger of things to come in this nascent industry. In 1970, he established a research and development partnership that brought waterjet technology to a small company called Flow Research.
Today, Flow Research spin-offs account for more than $200 million in revenues. The technology is commonly used in countless and diverse industries: paper, automotive, aerospace, food, metalworking, oil and gas, utility excavation, concrete scarifying and cleaning, and many more.
Dr. Olsen's initial technology focus was in the design, development and manufacture of the high-pressure pump. His work has included the most successful commercial designs of both the original intensifier pump and the direct drive pump.
Dr. Olsen's success in introducing waterjet technology to industry led him to see the even greater potential for abrasivejets in the average machine shop. But programming the jet's behavior had to be made simple.
The revolution in personal computing power made Dr. Olsen's vision a reality. He founded the OMAX Corporation in 1993. Since then, OMAX has become the leading developer and manufacturer of easy-to-use machine tools based upon the abrasivejet cutting process.
With over a dozen patents, and nearly as many publications to his name, Dr. Olsen continues to be a driving force in the waterjet and abrasivejet industries. He is currently the Vice President of Operations of the OMAX Corporation in Kent, Washington.
