ReSound Corporation Appoints Michael P. Downey as New Board Member.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 21, 1998--ReSound Corporation (Nasdaq:RSND) today announced the appointment of Michael P. Downey to the Company's Board of Directors. Downey, 51, most recently was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Nellcor Puritan Bennett, a medical device company that develops and markets products that diagnose, monitor and treat respiratory disorders.

"The combination of Mike's strong background in the medical device and technology industries, and extensive knowledge of financial operations worldwide makes him a perfect complement to our board of directors," said ReSound President and CEO Russell D. Hays. "I worked closely with Mike at Nellcor and his impressive track record makes him highly qualified to assist us in achieving our objective of becoming a premier hearing health care and human communications company. We look forward to tapping into the insight and experience that Mike brings to the board."

"I am very pleased to be working with ReSound, a company with leading-edge technology, a solid product pipeline, and strong strategic alliances," said Downey. "The highly talented team at ReSound is taking aggressive actions to grow both sales and profits as well as reposition the company in the marketplace. I am excited to be a part of this promising effort."

At Nellcor Puritan Bennett, Downey was responsible for managing the company's financial and information technology operations. He was an integral part of the senior management team, responsible for developing Nellcor's successful growth strategy.

Prior to joining Nellcor Puritan Bennett, Downey served as vice president of finance for Shugart Corporation, a manufacturer of disk drives. Downey also held financial management positions with General Motors Corporation.

Downey is currently chairman of the board of Artisoft, Inc., a provider of networking, communications and computer telephony solutions for businesses. He also serves on the board of directors of Emulex Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of both software and hardware based network access products supplying high-performance communications solutions for managing the flow of time-critical data between computers and peripheral equipment.

Downey holds an M.B.A. from the University of Santa Clara and a B.S. in business administration from San Jose State University.

ReSound Corporation is a hearing health care and human communications company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets technologically advanced hearing devices throughout the world.