Eliott Peck at the hot springs of Oita, near Canon’s sensor fab on Kyushu. Nov. 2008.

Eliott Peck is retiring from his position as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Imaging Technologies & Communications Group of Canon U.S.A., effective March 31, 2020. He will stay on as a consultant to Canon for a while.

Eliott played important roles in Canon’s notable achievements, including the AE-1 camera, the first PowerShot ELPH and EOS Rebel Digital cameras, the EOS 5D Mark II camera as well as the launch of Cinema EOS. He was the consummate product launch spokesman and gave  thousands of presentations in his 45-year career.

Eliott writes, “I have been  planning this for about a year, and the press release will go out this morning. After 45 years with Canon, I could not have asked for a better or more fulfilling career. I will certainly miss all the excitement, travels to Japan with you, new product launches, mostly though, all the amazing people I have met throughout my journey.”

We visited Japan quite a few times together as these photos will show. The ones I cannot seem to find are of Eliott eating ice cream almost wherever we went: Oita, Maui, Utsunomiya, Tokyo. Eliott was the one who introduced me to the InterBEE trade show and I have attended almost every year since. I owe him a great amount of thanks for introducing me to so many colleagues in the US and Japan, and paving the way for all the factory visits, product meetings, fabulous meals, amazing trips and lots of ice cream.

Eliott Peck began his career as a filmmaker.

He joined Canon in 1975 as a customer service associate and in 1977 became a Professonial/Technical Representative. He was hands-on and work on camera repairs as well. Eliott was the 143rd employee hired at Canon U.S.A. Inc.

With the encouragement of Fujio Mitarai, chairman and CEO of Canon Inc. and formerly president and CEO of Canon U.S.A. Inc., Eliott became a sales representative in 1979. He was promoted to regional sales manager of the Eastern Region in 1989 and became national sales manager in 1990. He kept getting promoted: in 2004, as Vice President and in 2010 to Senior Vice President and General Manager. He was Chairman and CEO of Canon Information Technology Services, Inc. for three years and assumed his current position in 2017.

Eliott is an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and a board member of the Consumer Technology Association. He is a former board member of the Photographic Manufacturers and Distributors Association, the International Imaging Association and The International Photographic Council.

In 2018, Eliott brought Canon U.S.A. to host NASA iTech, a forum for innovators to present their ideas to NASA. Later that year, he was a panelist at NASA’s renowned Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

Eliott said, “Imaging is at the heart of what we do here at Canon and I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to work with many friendly, smart and talented people to produce solutions that transformed the way we see and connect with the world.”