StockerYale Names New Vice President of Research and Development; Prominent Industry Expert to Oversee Development of Optical Components and Specialty Optical Fiber.

Business/Technology Editors

SALEM, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2000

StockerYale, Inc. (NASDAQ:STKR), a leading provider of optical communication components and specialized illumination products, has named Dr. Francois Ouellette, effective December 11, 2000, as vice president of research and development, optical components. Dr. Ouellette will focus on the development of optical components and specialty optical fiber (SOF) and will report directly to Alain Beauregard, president and chief technology officer.

Dr. Ouellette most recently founded and was president of Kromafibre, a developer and manufacturer of fiber Bragg gratings, (FBGs), located in Montreal, Canada. Kromafibre was acquired by Corvis Corporation in July 1999 and ultimately became Corvis Canada of which Dr. Ouellette remained as vice president.

Dr. Ouellette began his career as a research scientist for the Communications Research Center in Ottawa, Canada, where he began research on FBGs and the intrinsic photosensitivity effects on optical fiber. He also published the first proposition for the use of chirped FBGs for dispersion compensation in a seminal paper in 1987. Dr. Ouellette was co-holder of the Chair in Optical Telecommunications at the Department of Electrical Engineering of Laval University, in Quebec City, pursuing research on FBGs, dispersion compensation, AntiResonant Reflecting Optical Waveguides, (ARROW), and WDM technology. In addition, Dr. Ouellette was a principal research fellow at the Optical Fibre Technology Centre in Sydney, Australia, developing FBG applications such as dispersion compensation, athermal packaging, ultra-long FBGs, and fabrication technology that led to the birth of a spin-off company, IndX, which was later acquired by JDS Uniphase.

To meet today's growing bandwidth demands, optical networks are being deployed and are emerging as the next generation of high-capacity networks. The leadership and technical excellence that Dr. Ouellette has demonstrated throughout his career will be a great addition to the R&D team that StockerYale has assembled to date.

Dr. Ouellette plans to continue building a team of R&D professionals from the optical scientific community to further the development of StockerYale's optical components. In addition, Dr. Ouellette will work closely with Dr. Danny Wong, president of ISOF, a majority-owned subsidiary of StockerYale, in the development of a new class of specialty optical fiber and components. Dr. Ouellette will manage his R&D team from the new state-of-the-art photonics R&D and manufacturing facility located in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Ouellette earned his Ph.D. from Laval University in Quebec, Canada. He brings over ten years of professional research and industry experience in optical components for the communications industry and optical fiber, holds 3 patents related to fiber Bragg grating technology, and has published over 55 papers in scientific journals. Dr. Ouellette has organized and chaired the first two international conferences on Photosensitivity in optical fibers, and has sat on numerous organizing committees for national and international conferences in Canada, Australia and the U.S.

"Dr. Ouellette is well recognized for his achievements in the field of photonics and the development of innovative optical components and technologies," said Alain Beauregard, president & chief technology officer. "He brings a tremendous amount of experience to our team. His proven leadership and strong personal qualities will be extremely valuable in pursuit of our objectives and I am convinced that Dr. Ouellette will play a key role in our success," added Beauregard.

"The addition of Dr. Ouellette to StockerYale's photonics R&D team will be a real boost to our technical prowess in the further development of cutting-edge specialty optical fiber and components," said Mark Blodgett, StockerYale's chairman & chief executive officer. Blodgett continued, "We are extremely pleased that Dr. Ouellette has joined us in our ongoing efforts to position the company as an independent developer and manufacturer of optical components and look forward to his successes and contributions. As we continue to recruit seasoned R&D photonics specialists, we can be assured that the presence of a highly regarded industry expert such as Dr. Ouellette will greatly assist us in attracting the caliber of scientists and professionals that will ultimately be part of a top-notch R&D team."

About StockerYale

StockerYale, Inc. headquartered in Salem, NH, in an independent designer and manufacturer of optical components used in the building of optical networks as well as structured light lasers, specialized fiber optic, fluorescent, and LED illumination products for the machine vision and industrial inspection industries.

StockerYale serves a widely varied, international customer base from its corporate offices in Salem and reinvests a significant percentage of its revenues in R&D to meet the future requirements of its customers. StockerYale has offices and subsidiaries in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

For more information about StockerYale, Inc. and their innovative products, contact StockerYale, Inc., 32 Hampshire Rd., Salem, NH, 03079; Call 800-843-8011; Fax [phone]; or e-mail [e-mail]. Information is also available on the company's web site at www.stockeryale.com.

Notice to Investors:

This press release contains forward-looking statements that do not give full weight to all the potential risks, but relate to StockerYale's plans, objectives, and expectations, which are dependent upon a number of factors outside of StockerYale's control including, but not limited to: the ability of StockerYale and Dr. Ouellette to attract and hire the necessary personnel, technological trends in the telecommunications industry and the possibility that competitors may develop competing products at a faster rate. Thus, actual results may differ materially. StockerYale undertakes no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements.