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Board of Directors

James K. Robertson, President and CEO

Mr. Robertson has a broad-ranging 30 plus year career in multiple R&D and executive positions for large, multinational electronics companies focused on embedded controls.

Prior to co-founding E-trolZ, Mr. Robertson built from scratch two embedded control design service businesses, one inside Cadence Design Systems, a $1.6 billion electronic design automation software company, and the other inside Suntron, a $500 million contract manufacturer. Prior to starting the two design services businesses, Mr. Robertson was Director of North American Research and Development at Schneider Automation (presently Schneider Electric's Automation Division), a pioneer in factory automation, responsible for managing and directing the $30 million yearly product development activity, utilizing cross-functional, cross-site teams gaining vast experience in leading international (India, Germany, France and Japan) developments and processes. Previously at Schneider Automation he was Director of Programs performing organizational development, financial planning and oversight, process development, project management, and customer relations.

After receiving his technical degree, Mr. Robertson furthered his executive training with programs at the HEC School of Management, in Jouy-En-Josas cedex, France and at the Boston University School of Management.

 

James B. Hawkes

Mr. Hawkes is Chairman Emeritus of Eaton Vance Corp., a Boston-based publicly traded asset management firm. Mr. Hawkes joined Eaton Vance in 1970 as an equity research analyst and a vice president. He was named portfolio manager of Capital Exchange Fund, predecessor of Eaton Vance Tax-Managed Growth Fund, the company's flagship equity fund, in 1972. He was appointed Director of Research in 1979 and Chief Investment Officer in 1985. Mr. Hawkes was named Executive Vice President in 1990 and President and Chief Executive Officer in 1996. He became Chairman in 1997. Mr. Hawkes retired from Eaton Vance on October 31, 2007.

During his tenure, Mr. Hawkes led the successful product development and marketing of Eaton Vance's mutual funds. His efforts established Eaton Vance as one of the largest sponsors of municipal bond and senior floating-rate loan funds, and tax-managed growth funds, and he introduced the nation's first mutual funds to focus on China and India. He also initiated several new business lines for Eaton Vance, including separately managed accounts, institutional, and charitable giving. The Company's assets under management grew from $17 billion when he became CEO in 1996 to nearly $160 billion at his retirement in 2007. During Mr. Hawkes' last years as CEO, Eaton Vance led the fund industry for five consecutive years in closed-end fund assets raised and brought to market the largest ever initial public offering of a closed-end fund, the $2.62 billion Tax-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund (ETY). Prior to joining Eaton Vance, Mr. Hawkes was affiliated with United Nuclear Corporation as a senior engineer from 1968 to 1969. He also served for four years in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarine Service.

Mr. Hawkes graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1964 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1970. He has earned a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is an active member of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts and the Boston Security Analysts Society. In addition, Mr. Hawkes is a Trustee of the USS Constitution Museum and Peabody Essex Museum. During his career, Mr. Hawkes received many awards, including Fund Action's 2003 Marketer of the Year and, in 2008, its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. His commentary has appeared in American Banker, Barron's, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, CBS Marketwatch, Dow Jones Newswires, Investment News, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

 

Richard A. Pierro

Rick Pierro is co-founder and owner of Superior Controls, a leading automation engineering company. He has twenty-three years of control systems experience.

Mr. Pierro received a BA in Chemistry from Boston University in 1981, and an MS in Chemical Engineering from University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1983. His graduate level thesis involved testing advanced PID tuning techniques for process control applications. While developing his thesis during those two years, he also taught several process control lab courses and later attended business courses at Harvard Business School.

For three years after graduating, Mr. Pierro worked as an application engineer at a systems integrator designing and implementing PLC based control systems for the chemical and food and beverage industries. Over the next eight years, he advanced through project engineering, sales, and sales management, before co-founding Superior Controls in 1993.

Besides serving on the Board for E-trolZ, he serves on the Board of Acumentrics, a leading manufacturer of fuel cell power generation products. He also is on the Board of Directors and is currently President of ISPE-Boston; he is a Trustee of the New Hampshire High Tech Council; and he is Chairman of the Board of Advisors to the University of Massachusetts Lowell Chemical Engineering Department. Mr. Pierro is also a recipient of the "Distinguished Engineering Award" from the Francis College of Engineering at University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

 

Paul W. White

Mr. Paul W. White is co-founder of W & M Associates, a Brookline, Massachusetts-based management consulting firm providing strategic direction to both emerging and mature companies in the high technology industry. Mr. White has extensive experience, both domestic and international, in growing technology-based companies from start-up to multi-national market leaders.

Mr. White was President and CEO of AEG Modicon (presently Schneider Electric's Automation Division), a pioneer in factory automation. Previously, he was General Manager of the Industry Automation Division of Analog Devices, a $1 billion manufacturer of high precision electronic components and subsystems. Prior to that, he grew a new division for The Foxboro Company to $60 million through numerous acquisitions as Vice President of Marketing. He also led two successful start-up ventures, one based on technology licensed from A. D. Little and the other from technology developed at MIT.

Mr. White received his MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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