For awhile the company continued tomarket
the Thorn-RCA Colour-Television-tubes and the
Brimar Cathode Ray Tubes until Thorn-RCA
ceased to exist in 1976.
In 1973, Labuda travelled to the U.S. and
visited Edward and Florence Paley, the ow-
ners and founders of Texwipe Inc. in New
Jersey. At that time, Texwipewas a below
10 people-business for themanufacture of
specialised cleaningwipers and accessories
for the high tech industries. Edward Paley‘s
(6) visionwas that the structures of electronic
products would become increasingly smal-
ler while pollutants such as dust and pollen
would of course retain their original size. This
difference, so he thought, would lead to the
formation of entirely new industries, thema-
nufacture of specialised cleaningwipers being
only one of them. Labuda immediately under-
stood the immense opportunity resulting from
Paley‘s insight, especially since no cleanrooms
existed in Germany at that time. He became
a new contractual import-trader for Texwipe
products inGermany and remained in that
position until he founded Clear & CleanGmbH
with an own production line in Lübeck in 1979.
The dialoguewith Edward Paley had provided
Labudawith an entirely new perspective. He
subsequently expanded it and still feels indeb-
ted to Edward Paley today.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the physics of
wiper-based cleaning processes was complete-
ly unexplored. In addition, „wiping cloths“ had
a low product image at that time, an image
which needed improvement. Labuda recog-
nised the opportunity to be one of the first to
systematically research thewiping/cleaning
process. Tomake the planned research affor-
dable, he decided to invest his capital to set
up a laboratory.
BIOGRAPHY
2
//
ReinRaumTechnik
3/2008
Fig. 2
Win Labuda as an electronics importer with
Michael Carpenter in Paris, 1964
Fig. 4
- at the Ultraphot III PhotoMicroscope in
1983
Fig. 5
- Performing cleaning tests with colleagues at
the Infineon plant in Regensburg, 1995
Fig. 3
Win Labuda in 1968
