February 16, 2005, San Jose, CA--Bookham announced today that Dr. Andrew Rickman, its founder and chairman, has stepped down as chairman and a member of the board of directors following 17 years of service with Bookham. The board of directors has appointed Dr. Peter Bordui to succeed Rickman as chairman of the board.
Rickman founded the company in 1988 and was CEO of the company from inception to February 2001. The newly appointed Bordui has served as a director since March 2004, joining the board following the acquisition by Bookham of New Focus, of which he was a director from 2001 to 2004. Before joining New Focus, Bordui served as vice president and general manager, Source Lasers for JDS Uniphase, a fiber-optic communications product manufacturer, and prior to that held positions as general manager at a Siemens-owned materials and components company. Bordui currently chairs the compensation committee of the Board and is a member of the audit committee, and will also be joining the nominations committee. Bordui is active on the boards of a number of technology companies in the US and Europe.
Simultaneously, the company announced today that Liam Nagle will join Bookham's board of directors, but step down as chief operating officer and president to spend more time in his home country, Ireland, where he lives. Nagle became COO of Bookham upon the acquisition by Bookham of Nortel Networks Optical Components (NNOC), where he was vice president, operations, in November 2002.
Effective immediately, Jim Haynes will become chief operating officer of Bookham. Haynes has been with Bookham since June 2003, and has been vice president, UK operations since August 2004. In this capacity he is already managing all Bookham's UK sites, which comprise approximately two-thirds of all employees and over three-quarters of the company's shipments, and has been spearheading the move of the company's product assembly operations to its new facility in China. Mr. Haynes has a long and significant track record in the optical industry spanning over 20 years. He joined Bookham from Agility, where he had held the post of COO, and before that he spent 15 years in various positions at Nortel and STC.