Description
Contributors
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Charles Hull, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, 3D Systems
Chuck is the inventor of the solid imaging process known as stereolithography, the first commercial 3D printing technology. With the founding of 3D Systems in 1986 he initiated the 3-D printing industry and continues to lead it today with cutting edge innovations ranging from state of the art production 3D printers that have changed the game of manufacturing to the first home-certified 3D printing, the award winning Cube. He is a named inventor on more than 60 United States patents, plus numerous other patents around the world, in the fields of ion optics and 3D printing.
In 1994 he received the Jacquard Award from the Numerical Controls Society for his invention and commercialization of stereolithography. He received the 1995 Rank Prize, presented by The Rank Foundation in London, and in 1996 he received the William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award presented by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year for 1996 for high technology in the greater Los Angeles area by the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Institute. In 1997 he received the Albert M. Sargent Progress Award by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. In 2011, along with Avi Reichental, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year for manufacturing in the Carolinas.
Prior to founding 3D Systems, Mr. Hull served six years as vice president of engineering at UVP, Inc. in San Gabriel, California, a systems manufacturing company. It was at UVP that he developed and patented the stereolithography process. Before that, he spent 10 years as an engineering manager at DuPont’s Photo Products Division, concentrating on the development of analytical equipment for chemists, including mass spectrometer and GC/MS systems. Earlier in his career he was a senior engineer at Bell & Howell.
Mr. Hull received a BS in engineering physics from the University of Colorado in 1961 and an honorary Doctorate in Engineering from Loughborough University in the U.K. in 2005.