Phaethon Communications Rounds Out Its Executive Team, Adding Three Industry Veterans to Key Positions.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 2001 CFO See Chief Financial Officer. Fred Ruegsegger, VP Operations Stan Speelman and VP/General Counsel Philip Cardman Bring Skills Important to Phaethon's Next Stages of Growth Phaethon Communications, an innovator in photonics technology, today announced three key additions to its senior management staff, each of whom contributes critical expertise as Phaethon prepares for commercial delivery of its first optical dispersion compensation products. "All three of these individuals are world-class talents, as befits a company with world-class ambitions," said Gary Cuccio, chief executive officer and president of Phaethon. "Importantly, they are experienced in the areas of manufacturing, investments, global customer contracts and management for profit -- all of which will play crucial roles for Phaethon as we continue to execute our aggressive plans for expansion and success." Fred Ruegsegger Brings Financial Management Acumen Fred Ruegsegger, who began in April 2001 as Phaethon's chief financial officer, has spent more than two decades in financial leadership and chief executive positions at a wide range of start-up and publicly traded technology-based companies. "As an experienced CFO at both publicly traded and privately held companies privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , Fred has raised money in a number of venues. We'll be looking to his financial management prowess to ensure that Phaethon remains well funded to achieve all our short- and long-range plans," said Cuccio. Ruegsegger has held the position of chief financial officer at six previous companies, most recently FrontWay Network Solutions Inc. At privately held FrontWay, a development-stage professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. organization that designs and builds network infrastructure for Fortune 2000 companies, Ruegsegger was responsible for finance, human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. and operations. Before that, he was CFO at Neoforma.com, a publicly traded business-to-business e-commerce company focused on the healthcare supply chain. Previously in his career, Ruegsegger served as senior vice president of finance and corporate development and CFO for Axys Pharmaceuticals Inc., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and as president, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and a director of EyeSys Technologies Inc., which makes corneal topography Corneal topography, also known as photokeratoscopy or videokeratography, is a non-invasive medical imaging technique for mapping the surface curvature of the cornea, the outer structure of the eye. instrumentation and software. He spent 1986 to 1993 at Vitaphore Corp., a maker of collagen-based medical devices, in positions progressing from CFO and vice president of business development to president, CEO and director. Earlier, Ruegsegger was CFO and later COO for NeuroScience Inc., a start-up developer of real-time brain mapping Brain mapping is a set of neuroscience techniques predicated on the mapping of (biological) quantities or properties onto spatial representations of the (human or non-human) brain resulting in maps. All neuroimaging can be considered part of brain mapping. instrumentation; CFO for Fischer Imaging Corp., a medical instrumentation company; and district controller for Ryder Truck Rental. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics, with honors, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Early years: 1867-1880 The Morrill Act of 1862 granted each state in the United States a portion of land on which to establish a major public state university, one which could teach agriculture, mechanic arts, and military training, "without excluding other scientific , College of Commerce and Business Administration, and a master's degree master's degree n. An academic degree conferred by a college or university upon those who complete at least one year of prescribed study beyond the bachelor's degree. Noun 1. in management from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Stan Speelman Has Extensive Manufacturing Operations Manufacturing operations concern the operation of a facility, as opposed to maintenance, supply and distribution, health, and safety, emergency response, human resources, security, information technology and other infrastructural support organizations. Experience Stan Speelman, Phaethon's new vice president of operations, joins the company with more than 25 years of strong operations background, with special emphasis in manufacturing operations. "Stan has managed very high-volume operations, overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of manufacturing per quarter. As Phaethon ramps up manufacturing capabilities, and then as we begin to manufacture multiple products in volume, Stan's guidance will be paramount to keeping us on track," said Cuccio. Speelman previously spent nearly 10 years at KLA-Tencor, the leading supplier of inspection and yield management systems to the semiconductor industry. At KLA-Tencor, Speelman was most recently the vice president responsible for managing the merger process following the purchase of AMRAY Corp. Other positions at the company included vice president and general manager of the Customer Services Division, responsible for a $180 million business supporting a $1.2 billion business; group vice president of manufacturing; and vice president of manufacturing and acting general manager of the Wisard division. Before that, Speelman served as corporate director of manufacturing at Finnigan Instruments Corp., a leader in the analytical instrumentation industry; as manager of product assurance, manufacturing engineering Manufacturing engineering Engineering activities involved in the creation and operation of the technical and economic processes that convert raw materials, energy, and purchased items into components for sale to other manufacturers or into end products for and product technical support at Cordis Dow Corp.; and as a quality assurance manager at Varian Associates Varian Associates was a company founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first tube which could generate electromagnetic waves at microwave frequencies, and other electromagnetic equipment. . He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering electrical engineering: see engineering. electrical engineering Branch of engineering concerned with the practical applications of electricity in all its forms, including those of electronics. from San Jose San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. State University and has attended numerous advanced executive education programs at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. . Philip Cardman Philip Cardman, Phaethon's vice president, general counsel and secretary, is a lawyer with special expertise in general corporate and commercial law, international law and intellectual property matters. "Phil has been involved in handling a number of mergers and acquisitions, establishing and managing high-level customer contracts globally, and supervising the legal intricacies of public companies. We intend to call on his full range of expertise as we extend our corporate reach throughout the communications industry and around the world," said Cuccio. Prior to Phaethon, Cardman served as vice president, general counsel and secretary for Objective Systems Integrators, makers of network management software. At OSI (1) (Open System Interconnection) An ISO standard for worldwide communications that defines a framework for implementing protocols in seven layers. Control is passed from one layer to the next, starting at the application layer in one station, proceeding to the , he started the company's legal function and also managed its human resources and information systems operations. Before OSI, Cardman was vice president of business development, general counsel and secretary for Convex Computer Corp., makers of mini-supercomputers. Cardman spent eight years at Tandem Computers, including 3 1/2 years in London, and five years at Itel Corp. He began his career in private law practice at Pettit & Martin in San Francisco. Cardman earned his bachelor's degree in English literature and drama from Washington University and his juris doctor The degree awarded to an individual upon the successful completion of law school. Juris doctor, or doctor of Jurisprudence, commonly abbreviated J.D., is the degree commonly conferred by law schools. (J.D.) degree from Duke University. About Phaethon Communications Phaethon Communications is developing the first family of tunable, multichannel Using two or more paths for transmission or processing. It can refer to a variety of architectures including (1) multiple I/O channels between the CPU and peripheral devices, (2) multiple wires in a cable, (3) multiple "logical" channels within a single wire or fiber or (4) multiple modules to address optical dispersion in both OC-192 and next-generation OC-768 networks. Phaethon's feature-rich dispersion management modules counteract the inevitable degradation of high-speed light signals as they traverse optical fiber, so that communications network providers can send signals farther, faster, over more channels. By addressing carriers' and their end users' voracious appetite for more reliable, higher-bandwidth access, Phaethon is charting a course to the all-optical, mesh network. Phaethon, with headquarters in Fremont, Calif., has assembled one of the industry's most respected team of optical experts as well as a talented management team, led by CEO and President Gary Cuccio, with proven expertise in all aspects of the communications industry. The company has developed proprietary dispersion compensation technologies and holds a strong patent portfolio. Phaethon has secured approximately $30 million in two rounds of funding from top-tier investors that include Mohr, Davidow Ventures, The Photonics Fund, Goldman Sachs and Cisco Systems. |
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