David Epner, president of Epner Technology in Brooklyn, NY, who plated the Oscars for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, passed on April 30 at 89.
Epner Technology is known as a high-tech engineering and specification plating company. Its Laser Gold infrared reflective coating is world-renowned and has been the NIST standard for over 20 years. Plating difficult metal substrates such as molybdenum, titanium, and beryllium, and the plating of the engineering plastics such as Ultem, Teflon Torlon, and Ryton, are a specialty of the hundred-year-old plating shop.
David Epner helped lead the shop to fame by developing gold plating applications for Xerox, Hughes Aircraft, and Lockheed, as well as for thousands of other clients who went to Brooklyn to find the man with the “golden touch.” He ran the shop with Paul Brancato, and the late Stephen Candiloro, who passed in 2020.
“We are proud that a little company in Brooklyn made such a vital contribution to the success of our first orbital mission to the planet Mercury,” said NASA’s Arlen Bartel, Project Mgr., Mercury Laser Altimeter Messenger Spacecraft at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
The company was founded in 1910 by Epner’s father, Louis, along with his brother-in-law, Emanuel Cohan, as a jewelry repair company. The plating part was incidental but eventually became the focus of the business when they were asked to silver plate some of the earliest microwave radar systems for Columbia University’s radiation labs.
David’s brother, Gerald, joined the company in 1935 and was later followed by the younger David, who had been working at the shop since he was five. Gerald passed in 2004.
“You know what our mission statement is?” Epner asked me in 2011. “‘To make you look smarter than we both know you really are.’ It’s not ISO-approved, but it’s on our website anyway, and it really resonates with young engineers.”
David’s family says he was adored by friends and family for his charm and humor. They say David had a lifelong passion for sailing, art, and music. He mourned the loss of his wife of 50 years, Doris Walton, and is survived and will be missed by his nephews, Randolph (Pat Steidel), Ronald (Annie Andreson), and niece, Sylvia (Harold Kirk), his companion Elizabeth Martius and friend Tushia Fisher.
Graveside services are scheduled for Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY, on May 5.
