Benthos Announces Promotion, Addition to Management Team.

NORTH FALMOUTH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 1998--Benthos, Inc. (NASDAQ:BTHS) announced today the promotion of James R. Kearbey to General Manager of its TapTone Container Inspection Systems Division and the appointment of Robert C. Prescott to Vice President of Engineering.

Kearbey was previously a regional sales manager for TapTone with territory responsibility in the Western United States. He has over 15 years of engineering and sales experience in the packaging industry. Prior to joining TapTone in 1996, Jim was employed by Sasib, a large European manufacturer of filling and packaging machinery.

Kearbey and his family will be relocating to Massachusetts from the Chicago area.

Prescott, in the newly created position of Vice President of Engineering, will oversee engineering activities in both our Undersea Systems and Container Inspection Systems Divisions. He comes to Benthos from The Foxboro Company, where he was a senior consulting engineer specializing in Fieldbus process instrumentation.

Prescott brings over 30 years of engineering design and engineering management experience. His expertise spans the fields of sensor and instrumentation design as well as electronic signal processing, software and complex project management. Prescott also has 14 U.S. and foreign patents issued in his name.

Prescott and his family currently reside in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Benthos, Inc., through its Undersea Systems Division, designs, manufactures, sells and services oceanographic and robotic equipment for undersea exploration and research; and through its TapTone Container Inspection Division markets systems for testing consumer packages made of glass, metal or plastic. The common stock of the Company is traded on the Nasdaq SmallCap market under the symbol BTHS. For more information, Benthos can be found on the internet at http://www.benthos.com.