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It鈥檚 90 degrees on a late June day as Edward L. 鈥淓d鈥� Kaplan (ME 鈥�65) bounds into IIT Tower dressed in navy walking shorts, a navy plaid polo shirt, and fluorescent yellow athletic shoes. While his chronological age may be 75, his spirit and enthusiasm appear to be no less diminished than when he was a 26-year-old entrepreneur who, along with the late Gerhard 鈥淕ary鈥� Cless, began to fabricate the machines and processes that would eventually form Zebra Technologies Corporation, a pioneering asset-identification company that earned $3.72 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2017.

Too hyped up to even take a seat inside the cool conference room where we meet, Kaplan stands and provides a quick object lesson on a 500-milliliter plastic bottle of purified drinking water. He turns the bottle on its side and points to the black-and-white strip of lines and numbers鈥攖he barcode鈥攖hat, in a sense, comprises the cornerstone of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship.

鈥淲e had an entry product that was better, in some ways, than other printers that were in the marketplace,鈥� recalls Kaplan about the duo鈥檚 first barcode printer, the MODUPRINT. 鈥淏ut we didn鈥檛 stop there. We went into what was called thermal transfer and a revolutionary printing technology that moved Zebra Technologies into the industry leader position. The MODUPRINT could print this,鈥� Kaplan says, gesturing to the bottle鈥檚 barcode. 鈥淏ut it couldn鈥檛 print it as well or as fast or for the same price as the Z-130,鈥� he adds, acknowledging the thermal transfer device that moved the company into the top tier.

This story was featured in the fall 2018 issue of 91制片厂 Tech Magazine. You can read .