COMPANY HISTORY

Established in 2009, Built on a Legacy

Greenlight Optics was established in 2009. The company has since grown to become one of the most respected and sought after companies for plastic optics and optical system design and manufacturing services.

Greenlight Optics builds on the legacy of US Precision Lens (USPL), a Cincinnati company that grew from making watch crystals to becoming a world leader in projection lenses and plastic optics. Many of Greenlight Optics employees worked together at US Precision Lens, which later was named Corning Precision Lens and 3M Precision Optics. Here, we developed first-hand knowledge and experience around design, development and manufacturing of cost-competitive precision optical systems. At USPL, we also developed an appreciation for, and now strive to create, a culture marked by respect for the individual and putting customers first. While with 3M Precision Optics, the founders of Greenlight Optics developed the pico projector technology that won the 2008 Popular Science “Best of What’s New” and the national Edison Gold Award for Technology Innovation.

Greenlight’s founders understood the advantage of having co-located design, prototyping, and manufacturing when developing new optical products. They also recognized that it was rare to find this range of capabilities in one company and even more rare to find this broad optics capability offered as a service to industry. Thus, Greenlight Optics was created to provide turnkey new optical products development and manufacturing.

The company has steadily added talented, experienced people and extensive equipment capability in order to meet the needs of our customers. In 2011, the company moved from rented industrial space to the 1st Greenlight owned building which contains engineering offices, collaboration spaces, an opto-electronics lab, four separate climate-controlled manufacturing areas, and warehouse.  In 2023, the company purchased and began moving into a 2nd building to support expansion of our manufacturing operations.  Through continuous investment in R&D, talent, and new equipment, Greenlight Optics has become a leader in plastic optics, optical assemblies, and new frontiers such as freeform optics.

Greenlight Optics has put these capabilities to work and helped dozens of companies achieve R&D and commercial success.