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Relume Mourns Death Of Founder, LED Industry Pioneer

Oxford-based Relume Technologies last week announced the death of its founder, Peter Hochstein, an early innovator in LED lighting.

Hochstein passed away unexpectedly over the Memorial Day weekend at his Troy home at the age of 65. He is survived by his wife Marie; son, Kevin Baird; and daughter, Jessica Armour.

A memorial service for Hochstein was held today, Friday, June 3 at Relume Technologies Corporate Headquarter in Oxford.

A brilliant thinker whose interests spanned a wide range of academic and technical subjects, Hochstein's many discoveries and advancements in the LED lighting sector eventually led to 12 patents and the founding of Relume Technologies (then Relume Corp.) in 1994. First as president and more recently as chief technical officer and company director, Hochstein laid the foundation for the technical excellence and advanced product solutions for which Relume Technologies is known.

Over the last decade, Hochstein had developed a deep array of important and breakthrough technology discoveries in the areas of thermal management of LEDs and smart grid networking control systems. This technological platform serves as a core differentiator for Relume in the LED lighting market.

Said Relume CEO Crawford Lipsey: "Besides being a dear friend and a great colleague, Peter was one of the grand men in our field. Peter founded Relume by offering the market the most technically advanced LED solutions. The employees of Relume Technologies will honor his legacy by continuing our path of establishing Relume as the world's most technologically superior LED lighting company.   We will miss him dearly, and our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Marie and the entire Hochstein family at this time."

Added Jeff Bocan, a Relume board member and managing director of the Farmington Hills venture fund Beringea, an investor in Relume: "Peter gave us the technical foundation to make the most reliable and efficient LED lighting products, and now more than ever, we are committed to see to it that Peter's original vision of building a world-class LED lighting company comes to fruition."

Hochstein began his career in 1965 at Owens Illinois Technical Center working on the development of ultra-high temperature induction heating instrumentation. In 1966, he joined General Motors as a senior project engineer in their materials and structures laboratory where he worked on numerous automotive and non-automotive related projects including classified contracts on reentry physics for ballistic missiles and early development of LED lighting. In 1975, Hochstein left General Motors to form Quantex Engineering, which provided instrumentation, test standards and proprietary electronics technologies and hardware for the automotive industry and allied suppliers.

In 1994 Hochstein formed Relume Corp., where he continued to invent unique solutions to address complex LED lighting challenges and develop related technologies intended to be made available for commercial use.

Hochstein has more than 80 patents to his credit, with 12 patents relating to LED thermal management and related technologies and four additional patents pending. Hochstein has bachelor's degrees in physics from the University of Toledo and Acton College. He earned his Masters Degree in Engineering Optics and X-Ray Crystallography from Wayne State University and Oakland University.

At the family's request, contributions in Peter Hochstein's name may be made to the South Oakland Shelter, 431 N Main Street, Royal Oak, Michigan  48067.

More at www.relume.com.

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