When Rich Pineau was growing up on Margin Street in the Tower Hill section of Lawrence, he never imagined that one day his name would be listed as “Inventor” on twenty patents. He didn’t plan on being a Chief Technology Officer of a start‐up, or a Vice President for Polaroid. “I thought I’d be a
garbage collector,” he laughs. “I always thought it would be a lot of fun riding around on one of those trucks.” Pineau remembers being in grammar school building a coil and using a battery to rotate a motor – “just because I thought I could do it. I was interested in what could be done with electronics.”
Rich grew up in Lawrence with his twin brother Ray (Class of 1970) in a three story tenement with his father Edmund and his mother Anita. Edmund worked as a fry cook in the Den Restaurant on route 114 and also worked for his best friend’s company, the Sirois Brothers, on Lowell Street, making deliveries to
the local barrooms. When the Pineaus were in junior high, Anita fell ill and passed away their sophomore year in high school.
“It was hard for my father, but my aunt and uncle lived in the same house on the second floor and they
helped bring us up. He was able to subsidize my aunt a little for watching two hellions. We were always
into something,” he smiled.
“We were street kids. We used to go to the Boys Club on Water Street and going to the YMCA became a
ritual for us. We were there so much that the guy who ran the youth group gave my brother and I free
memberships. Anything they needed done, we’d do.”
The twin brothers were fortunate enough to spend their summers at Camp Lawrence on Bear Island in
the White Mountains of New Hampshire. “It was awesome,” he remembers. “A nice, big lake, on an
island…We got to learn different skills. It was probably the best experience I had as a kid.”
In junior high Rich began dating Christine Becotte. They were both involved in the Catholic Youth
Organization at the time. Rich became President of the CYO and Christine Vice President. “We were
together all the time, planning events and dances… It was basically like a teen movie,” he laughs. This
year they will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.
It was also in junior high that representatives from the Greater Lawrence Regional Vocational High
School visited to talk about the opportunities the new school offered. Pineau was sold. “I thought it
would be more fun than going anywhere else. I didn’t want a typical high school.”
So Rich and his brother Ray told their mother that the days of them wearing identical outfits to school
were over and they enrolled at GLTS. “It was a big change, we had to walk up Tower Hill to catch the
bus. Before that we’d walk to school every day and come home for lunch. We had to wear suit jackets
and ties and the school day went until 4:00 – they wanted it to be like a job.”
Rich had been planning on playing football freshman year, but a bout of pneumonia put him in the
hospital and he didn’t make the team. The next year he decided to try cross country, where he met
John Lavoie – now Superintendent of GLTS. “John was the Captain of the team. The best runner we had
on cross country.” Pineau ran cross country, played basketball for Coach Sanders and ran spring track.
“We had some great runners. Our senior year we won the state championship in track. We had a lot of
good athletes in the school.”
Pineau became absorbed in electronics. “We wore lab coats – we didn’t get our hands dirty,” he laughs.
“We did lab experiments, learning about capacitors and resistors, discreet circuits.” It was at GLTS that
he met the teacher who would influence Rich’s life. “Mr. Iacobucci was our idol and senior year we
voted to learn digital which was integrated logic systems. He said ‘I really think you guys need to learn
this if you want to get a good job.’” He had seen the future.
Rich worked his co‐op job for MFE in Methuen square. “I worked as a technician and the first thing they
gave me to do was to build a power supply, so I built the power supply and on my review, it said that it
wasn’t ‘neat’. I remember Mr. Iacobucci asked ‘But did it work?’ and I said yes, but I was never ‘messy’
again.”
“Mr. Iacobucci was really into education and learning. He was a graduate of the Franklin Institute in
Boston and he encouraged a bunch of us to go.”
Rich had his father, Edmund, drive him in to the big city so he could look at his new school. After driving
around Boston unable to find the school they finally pulled over to a police station and asked for
directions. Rich laughs, “The cop looks out the window and pointed across the street. It was one
building, one small building.”
Rich excelled at Franklin. “It was great because when I went there I didn’t feel like I had to worry about
the electronics piece because I had all the background from Greater Lawrence, it was fantastic. I was
well prepared – Mr. Iacobucci had taught us all the tricks.”
Rich graduated in 1972, got married the next year and not long after bought a house in North Andover.
Christine worked at Andover Surgical, managing the office, and soon they had two children, Melissa and
Adam.
Rich began working at Compugraphic in Wilmington while going to UMass/Lowell at night to
pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and then a Master’s Degree in Computer Science.
He started out on the production line as a technician but after six months his supervisor recognized the
talent he had and arranged for him to join the engineering research group where they were performing
very advanced development work. After a year in that position, the Blizzard of ’78 hit and halted
development of a “secret”project. The company asked Rich to help out the group for a couple of weeks
to get them back on track.
“I had already started my advanced degree and was moving into software and I realized that what they
were doing was really old school. After three weeks I went to the guy who was running the program
and told him I could eliminate half the boards on the system. I told them I’d convert it all to digital. They
asked me to make a prototype and I earned a bonus and they promoted me to engineer. I was so
excited.”
Rich was in the perfect position for the approaching technology boom. After eight years, he moved to a
startup, Lexidata, and designed state of the art computer graphic systems for the CAD/CAM market. He
then joined Kodak and became involved with digital imaging. Like many companies at the time, Kodak
didn’t realize that they needed to move in a different direction. “They just couldn’t make the transition
from film to digital,” he explains. Pineau moved on to Polaroid.
Pineau became a Vice President at Polaroid, another company that was dealing with changing times. He
ran the software group and set up a development organization for software in New Delhi, India. “I
remember sitting there in a meeting with the Engineering and Film VPs and the guy who was running
the meetings said that he was amazed to discover there were more software people in the company
than chemists.” Polaroid didn’t survive.
After a stint at Raytheon, Pineau was contacted by the EVP from Polaroid that had originally hired him.
He had a new opportunity for him. Rich signed on to do contracting work for a new startup venture that
was developing new technology with 360‐degree cameras. They hired him to architect a new security
system based on the new technology. Pineau brought on his son, Adam, to help with his knowledge in
network design and nine months later, Rich presented his proposal to the investors. They invited him to
come on board as their Chief Technology Officer.
The company, Oncam, is an independent, specialized IP video and technology company with a
reputation for being one of the most innovative firms in today’s market. Oncam has won multiple
awards and is recognized as an industry leader. Their customers include MGM Casinos, Royal Caribbean,
Subway and Burger King to name a few.
As CTO, Pineau is responsible for all the advanced technology at Oncam. He comes up with the ideas
that are then prototyped. “New ideas are still coming – I’m working on one right now that, if it works,
will be revolutionary. I don’t think of it as work, I think of it as enjoyment. Coming up with different
ideas. Loving what you do makes a big difference!”
Rich and Christine recently sold their house in North Andover and moved into a new community in
Methuen where, he is happy to say, they are not responsible for shoveling the driveway or mowing the
lawn. As for his bride, he says he is still madly in love, “though sometimes she probably wants to kill
me.”
He is still close with his brother, Ray. They both bought vacation homes in the North Conway area
where Rich and Christine enjoy skiing with their four grandchildren. “As a kid, I had no idea about skiing,
I’d never been to a mountain – I’d never left Lawrence,” he laughs. He’s come a long way.
“It’s funny there weren’t even computers when I started working. I used a slide ruler all through college.
I used the same one that Mr. Iacobucci made us all buy – a nice bamboo one that didn’t bend. Greater Lawrence gave me a great start in life, it got me interested in what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, it made
me realize that this could really be a lot of fun.”