CEO Resigns From Princeton Lightwave
Greg Blonder, also a member of the board, will function as Chairman and interim CEO for Princeton Lightwave. Blonder was previously a senior executive at Bell Labs and AT&T Ventures, and is now a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures.
Shaffer said "during his tenure at Princeton Lightwave, John has used his extensive industry experience to establish market positioning, product focus, and key customer relationships for the company."
PLI is currently selling products and is on target to achieve its 2000 revenue projections. PLI will be formally introducing its next line of active component products in March at the Optical Fiber Conference in Anaheim, California.
"Princeton Lightwave possesses unique intellectual property, as well as a solid management and technical team. The company is well positioned to capture a significant portion of the rapidly growing active component markets," said Pittman. "Nevertheless, I found that I missed the challenges of running a larger company with a more diverse product line and a broader range of activities."
Prior to joining PLI, Pittman had been managing director with global responsibility for the optoelectronics division of Nortel Networks [NT], a company where he spent 17 years in various executive positions. Most recently at Nortel he had approximately 4,000 people reporting to him, with an estimated revenue stream well in excess of $1 billion for the year 2000.
Princeton Lightwave designs and manufactures optical components for advanced network applications. In May 2000, Princeton Lightwave concluded a $28-million first round of investment. The Company investors are Venrock Associates, Morgenthaler Ventures, Sarnoff Corporation, and U.S. Venture Partners.
Edited by Evan Bass
Managing Editor, Fiber Optics Online