Woodbury, NY—It is with profound sadness that we mark the untimely passing of Hilary Araujo on April 14, 2011 at the age of 65 after a short illness. Araujo was vice president of Marketing for The Tiffen Company of Hauppauge, New York, and was responsible for the company’s overall advertising, marketing and public relations.
Thanks to his keen intellect, attention to detail, exemplary work ethic, his disarming honesty and integrity, and his uncanny ability to relate to people with empathy and compassion, he established an unsurpassed record of accomplishment at Tiffen—and over nearly 40 years of outstanding service and dedication to the imaging industry.
Hilary Araujo’s first love was photography. He began as a staff photographer for his school newspaper and ran a small business providing overnight processing and enlargements for a local photo store. He entered Queens College, but the Vietnam War intervened; he served with distinction in the Air Force for four years (1965-1969) and was present during the Tet Offensive. After serving his country, he resumed his studies at the Germain School of Photography.
Following a stint working at Conrad Studios in Manhattan, which culminated with the position of staff photographer, Araujo signed on with Berkey Marketing, a premier manufacturing and marketing company, where he managed the company’s in-house studio and eventually became product manager. In 1984, he accepted the position of vice president of Marketing with GMI Photographic, a position he held for 10 years before Richard Darrow, an old buddy from his Berkey days, offered him a top marketing position at ToCAD. Araujo remained with ToCAD from 1995-2004 and was a key to its successful expansion, but in 2004 he gratefully accepted an executive marketing position offered by Steve Tiffen, president and CEO of The Tiffen Company.
In his six years as vice president of Marketing at Tiffen, Araujo enhanced his knowledge base to effectively market and promote an entirely new range of high-tech products. In recognition of his service to the motion picture industry he was named an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers, an unprecedented honor for anyone not actually a working cinematographer.
“Hilary’s sense of fairness was remarkable and beyond reproach,” said Steve Tiffen. “He taught me the importance of balance—of making sure the other person is getting what they need while you are also getting what you require. The one word that keeps coming up when people talk about Hilary is ‘caring’ and this is eloquently expressed in both his personal and professional life. One of his major achievements at Tiffen was establishing a cohesive brand strategy that will take us confidently into the future. He was a dear friend and a great colleague who made so many contributions to our company. This is truly a great loss.”
Hilary Araujo was a lifetime photo enthusiast but ultimately the two abiding passions of his life were his family and his job. He was deeply devoted to Sandy, his wife of nearly 40 years, and his daughter, Susan, who lauds him as “my loving and dedicated father and my best friend who taught me how to survive in the world.”
The life of Hilary Araujo represents an unsurpassed record of accomplishment; he was a consummate gentleman whose brilliance, compassion, commitment to excellence and hard work brought immense benefits to the companies he worked with and to the industry he loved. This was a special man who will be missed by all those who had the privilege to know him and to work with him.
