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Old Bridge, NJ - December 1, 2009 - The PhotoImaging Manufacturers and Distributors Association (PMDA) announced that Shigetaka Komori, President and CEO, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, will receive the 2009 Person of the Year award. The award will be presented at the annual PMDA awards dinner on March 2, 2009 at Caesars Palace Hotel in Las Vegas.

Other recipients to receive awards from PMDA at the gala event include Michael Deng, Founder and CEO of ArcSoft for Technical Achievement, David Willard, a longtime Olympus executive and past PMDA President for Lifetime Achievement, and world-renowned photojournalist Bill Eppridge for Photographer of the Year.

The PMDA awards are given annually to the persons or organizations that have significantly contributed to the imaging industry throughout the year, or throughout their careers, and have had a positive and meaningful impact on the business of photography.

Shigetaka Komori, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation- Winner

Shigetaka Komori's career began at Fuji Photo Film Company, Ltd. in 1963. Since then he has held numerous positions in Japan and Europe, where he was General Manager of the Dusseldorf Office and Managing Director of Fuji Photo Film (Europe) GmbH. In 1999, he became a Managing Director of the parent company while retaining his positions in Europe. In March 2000, he returned to Japan as Managing Director and General Manager of the Corporate Planning office. In June of the same year, he was named President and Representative Director of Fuji Photo Film Company, Ltd., and in 2003 he assumed the additional role of Chief Executive Officer. Fujifilm created a new group management structure and changed its name to Fujifilm Holdings Corporation in 2006, at which time Mr. Komori assumed his current position as President and CEO of Fujifilm Holdings Corporation.

Mr. Komori's many contributions were recognized in 2004 when he was awarded the Medal with Blue Ribbon by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. In 2006, the Photo Marketing Association International (PMA) awarded Mr. Komori its Hall of Fame award, the highest honor given by PMA, the international trade association for the photo imaging industry. Also in 2006, he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany from His Majesty the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Michael Deng - Technical Achievement Award

Michael Deng is the president and CEO of ArcSoft, Inc. In 1994, with funds from family and friends, Deng founded ArcSoft in Silicon Valley with the idea of building an imaging software title on the PC with functions close to Photoshop but sold at a small fraction of its price. Since then, ArcSoft has evolved as a leading imaging technology and multimedia software vendor, licensing its products and IPs to mainstream digital camera, mobile phone, and multimedia PC manufacturers. Still a private company, ArcSoft has about 700 employees worldwide with more than 600 scientists and software engineers.

Born in Beijing, China, Michael came to Washington University in St. Louis for his PhD in physics in 1986. After his graduation in the U.S., he worked as a post-doctoral research scientist in Cavendish Laboratory in University of Cambridge in 1991 and 1992. Before founding ArcSoft, Deng was a software engineer and product manager of Enertronic Research, Inc.

David Willard - Norman C. Lipton Lifetime Achievement Award

Dave Willard is a 29-year veteran of Olympus. He served in senior sales and marketing management positions in the Consumer Products Group (now Olympus Imaging America Inc.) from 1980 through 1998. During this period, he was involved in the marketing of Olympus 35mm and digital cameras which included market share leadership in 35mm point-and-shoot cameras and the transition to digital technology.

In 1999, Willard started and ran the company's Internet Business Development Department, managing the company's e-business and e-commerce activities until 2003. As Director - Corporate Marketing & Community Services from 2003 until June 2008, he managed marketing activities that involved various Olympus business groups working together to support the Olympus brand. This included the award-winning Olympus OnSite mobile showroom for healthcare products, voted best business-to-business mobile marketing program in 2005 and 2006.

Willard is an active past president of PMDA (1988-89). He is a recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the Photo Marketing Association and the Torch of Liberty Award from the Anti-Defamation League.

Bill Eppridge - Photographer Award

During a storied career that has spanned more than four decades, photojournalist Bill Eppridge has covered a remarkable assortment of stories for renowned national publications such as National Geographic, LIFE magazine and Sports Illustrated.

His collective assignments read like a list of the most important historical and cultural events from the latter half of the 20th Century. Eppridge recorded the Beatles' first momentous visit to the United States. He photographed a young Barbra Streisand-living in a tiny railroad apartment in Manhattan-on the verge of super stardom. He was the only photographer admitted into Marilyn Lovell's home as her husband, Jim, made his nail-biting re-entry into the atmosphere in the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. He captured Clint Eastwood on the set of Dirty Harry. He was at Woodstock. And he was in Vietnam. He covered the funeral of civil rights activist James Chaney in Mississippi.

Eppridge spent much of 1966 and 1968 on the road with Robert F. Kennedy, covering the presidential campaign for LIFE magazine. It was Eppridge who took one of the decade's most poignant and iconic photographs: a stunned Los Angeles busboy, Juan Romero, cradling the candidate in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, just seconds after he was shot. The picture has been described as a modern Pietà.

Throughout his career Eppridge has been a respected force in training a new generation of photojournalists at the University of Missouri Photojournalism Workshop, as well as at the Eddie Adams Photography Workshop, and Photography at the Summit, in Wyoming. His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Museum of Television and Radio, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Visa Pour L'Image in Perpignon, France and in galleries throughout the U.S. and Europe. A comprehensive exhibit of his photographs of the Beatles are currently on a worldwide tour, and, in the spring of 2008, went on exhibit in the Beatles' hometown of Liverpool.