WILMINGTON, Del., March 28, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Third-Order Nanotechnologies, Inc. (Pink Sheets:TDON) announced today that corporate restructuring advisor, Hal Bennett, has joined the company's board of directors. The decision to recruit Mr. Bennett to the board was made in anticipation of an internal restructuring of corporate management that will be required to successfully incorporate the company's technology into functional commercial products, which is anticipated to occur later this year. As a first step in its management restructuring, the board of directors unanimously determined not to renew interim CEO Ron Genova's month-to-month consulting contract, but to instead commence a search for a new full-time CEO.
Recent breakthroughs by the company's scientists and engineers have resulted in the fabrication of a new generation of electro-optic (chromophore-doped) plastics capable of modulating light. These nano-engineered materials will form the company's basis of product offerings in the fiber-optic communications arena. This signals the company's transition from the research phase to the commercialization phase and requires a new level of management to aggressively develop the company's business.
Frederick Goetz, President of Third-Order explains: "We are strengthening both our scientific and management teams. Our chromophore is a major scientific breakthrough. Taking this revolutionary idea and projecting it into a wide range of successful products, in the military and civilian sectors, not only requires scientific expertise, but the specialized management expertise that Hal Bennett can bring to our company. Hal's track-record for growing high-tech companies is unambiguous, and I believe that his introduction to Third-Order will dramatically shift and broaden its direction and vision." The addition of Hal Bennett to Third-Order's board of directors comes on the heels of a similar expansion of the company's technological breadth: The addition of Terry Turpin, CTO of Essex Corporation, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, and the father of Hyperfine Wavelength Division Multiplexing, to the scientific advisory board of Third-Order; and a technology partnership agreement with Photon-X LLC, a leader in nanofabricated polymer waveguide optical circuits.
For over a decade, Mr. Bennett has acted as a corporate restructuring advisor for large high-tech corporations, including DuPont, Silicon Graphics, 3M and Sun Microsystems. Most recently, Mr. Bennett successfully implemented a program for DuPont to outsource innovation by creating a new business model for DuPont Ventures. He started his restructuring career by turning around Research Systems, a scientific software company, which was acquired by Kodak two years subsequent to his involvement with that company. Before that, he gained extensive experience in starting and growing companies in Silicon Valley, including Aprex, West End Partners Imaging and Digital Research. Mr. Bennett has a degree in Mathematical Physics from Stanford University and is named on several U.S. Patents.
About Third-Order Nanotechnologies
Third-Order Nanotechnologies is emerging from a development stage research and development company with commercial introduction of its high-activity, high-stability organic polymers for applications in electro-optic and all-optical device markets. Electro-optic devices convert data from electric signals into optical signals for use in high speed communications systems and in optical interconnects for high-speed data transfer. All-optic devices, while still some time from commercial application, control the flow of light with optical (not electric) signals.
Safe Harbor Statement
The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "explores," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and various other factors beyond the Company's control.