Joseph Meshi was born in Haifa, Israel on September 5, 1944 to parents who fled Europe during World War II. His mother was Miriam Meshi (nee’ Hutterer-Hauslich) (1914-1992) and his father was Morris Meshi (1912-1996). He lived in Israel for the first 15 years of his life. He excelled in school and attended The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa which is known as the oldest top private school in Israel.
At the age of 15 he moved to Forest Hills, New York with his family. He attended Forest Hills High School Class of 1962 where he enjoyed being the Captain of the Chess Team and also played on the Soccer Team. He was a member of the New York and the US Chess Federation. He made good friends in high school many with whom he shared a lifelong friendship.
He went on to attend the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn which is now known as NYU-Poly from 1962-1966. He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering. He enjoyed being a summer intern at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in the Summer of 1966. He was a member of AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics), The Combustion Institute and Sigma Xi. We would also often hear of him fondly remembering his days as a Water Polo Goalie for the school team which competed on a national level. He then received a Master’s Degree from NYU-Poly in Mechanical Engineering in 1967 on a full teaching fellowship.
In 1967 he joined the United States Air Force as an Officer and Aeronautical Engineer with the Air Force Aero Propulsion Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. At Wright Patterson he administered several multi-million dollar R & D programs. He effectively directed the early development of alternative designs of hypersonic propulsion engines (with United Aircraft & Marquardt). In addition, he also conducted basic and engineering research in hypersonic combus-tion and aerothermochemistry. He also had additional duties with military intelligence.
He served stateside during wartime Vietnam from 1967 until 1970 when he left active duty to further pursue his education.
He went on to attend school and graduate from the University of Southern California with a Master’s Degree in System’s Management in 1971. And also graduated from San Diego State University in 1978 with an M.B.A in Finance.
He would have liked to be professionally remembered the most as an entrepreneurial business builder who specialized in technology companies. He had decades of multi-functional executive experience in technology companies, anchored by 14 years with large enterprise-level firms, followed by more than 30 years with early-stage ventures. He loved supporting and turning business start ups around. He had top notch startup and turn around skills. He achieved 3 highly successful business exits.
Early in his career as a Business Executive he was co-founder and vice president of Conographic Corporation and managed a joint venture between Hughes Aircraft and Conographic Corporation (which at the time was among the ten largest computer graphics system vendors in the US with revenues of $40 Million.
He was also involved with AM Documentor (A Division of AM International-a Fortune 500 Com-pany) where he was Vice President of Marketing. This division became the worlds largest supplier of Point-of-Sale (POS) and Retail automation systems to the food service and hospitality markets. He spearheaded the company’s expansion into Canada & Europe. There he also shared internation-al awards for advertising excellence. His Market Research Team was considered the best at AM International and used as a model for other divisions.
In the early 1980’s he became President & CEO of Micro General Corporation as well as a Board Member. Micro General became the then largest provider of electronic postal scales to the US Postal Service and eventually reached sales of $150 Million. Micro General is currently on NASDAQ and a part of Fidelity National Financial.
Later in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s he joined Gradco Systems as a Director. Gradco acquired Conographic Corporation. At the time Gradco was the world’s largest vendor of paper feeders and sorters for copiers and printers with annual sales of more than $200 Million. And in the 1990’s he was Executive Vice President, COO, CMO & CFO and Board Member of Genovation Incorporated. He helped to grow Genovation in to a profitable multi-million dollar concern with long term partners such as IBM, Toshiba, Alps Electric, Lock-Heed Martin among others.
He also worked as Co-Founder, Vice President and President with Venture Services, Growth Ventures Group & Inovium Corporation.
Over the years he enjoyed mentoring teams of MBA students at UCLA, UCI and ISU. He also enjoyed teaching students in his later years as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at California State University, Fullerton.
During his over 40 year career as a Business Executive he also formulated strategy and developed over 100 business plans for a wide variety of leading-edge technological businesses like Broadband Communications, Computed Radiography, Retail Automation, Computer Peripherals, Remote Medical Monitoring, Wireless Datacom, 3D Panospheric Imaging and many more. He published about a dozen substantial studies and research reports and made many presentations in professional seminars. He would jokingly call himself “a real ham” as he often loved the professional and personal spotlight.
He was however most proud in his professional accomplishments of having conceived, developed and marketed the world’s first digital chess clock. He is the Inventor and the first commercial producer of the Digital Chess Clock. He has two US Patents in this regard. He was also an avid Chess player and lover throughout his life.
In 1972 he met his wife, Estera Meshi (nee’ Sapirstein) and they were married on August 27, 1972. They remained married for over 47 years. His daughter Alexis was born in 1973 and his son Dar in 1975. He moved to Newport Beach, California in the late 1970’s and lived here almost entirely until his passing. He loved living on Lido Isle where he lived for almost 30 years. He is fondly remembered for his love of all things Space, Soccer-he played in gentleman’s leagues until he was in his 60’s and his love of Chess.
He was a loving husband, father and provider who instilled more than anything else the love of education and honorable and disciplined hard professional work in his children.
He is remembered for being smart, direct, honest and honorable and for having a wicked sense of humor. He is also fondly remembered for encouraging his children in the Martial Arts, teaching his children to drive way before the age of 15!, often playing board games and poker with his family and celebrating his children’s educational victories and accomplishments. He often took his children on travels throughout the US and the World. They have many fond memories of traveling to Europe with him.
He would often tell his children that he loved them “googles” before google became a household word. He loved his family very much.
Joseph Meshi passed on March 24, 2020. He is survived by his wife Estera, his daughter Alexis and his son Dar. He is also survived by numerous cousins from around the world from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to New York. He is also survived by many friends, some of whom are from his childhood, from around the world including from his much beloved home country of Israel.
Burial is at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar, California. In lieu of flowers his family requests donations to be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation.
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