Gene Huh, the founder of Vertex LCD, Inc. came to the United States at the age of fifteen from S. Korea. A graduate of UCLA with a degree in Business Economics and Accounting, Mr. Huh started a manufacturer's representative business for LG LCD displays in Tustin, CA in 1996. Gene then discovered an unmet customer need for AMLCD (Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display) with increased brightness that the LCD manufacturer could not provide because the quantities were not large enough for special production runs.

Mr. Huh then formed Vertex LCD Inc. in 1999 in Orange County, California to fill this need by stripping down the LCD panels and rebuilding them with specialized BEF (brightness enhancement films). The ability to open the LCD panel and replace the polarizer’s and enhancement films provided the additional luminosity with lower power consumption in many cases that the customers needed for special applications critical to the military, commercial avionics, industrial and marine applications.

The early success for these and other more specialized LCD enhancements such as replacing Mercury laden CCFL tube lamps with LED backlighting provided even brighter viewing images, superior contrast, improved color and video with a significant reduction of motion video blurring. Vertex quickly became known as a "fabless" manufacturer and its dominance in this enhancement business led to opening of sales offices in Tel-Aviv , Israel , and Suwon S. Korea and a second manufacturing facility in Hong Kong for large scale production