Emcore has appointed Dr Hank Blauvelt to the position of chief technology officer.
Dr Blauvelt reports to new chief executive officer, Jeffrey Rittichier, who officially took up the post on 3 January.
The changes in the management team come soon after Emcore completed the sale of its tunable laser telecoms business to NeoPhotonics and the sale of its solar photovoltaics business to a private equity group (see Emcore's tunable lasers move to NeoPhotonics). The slimmed-down Emcore will focus on providing fiber-optic components and subsystems for access networks, including cable television (CATV) and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), as well as satellite, video transport and defence applications.
Many of the remaining product lines at Emcore are based on technology that originated from Ortel, the pioneering laser maker that was sold to Lucent Technologies in 2000 for $2.95 billion. The technology moved to Agere Systems when Lucent spun out its component business, and then to Emcore when it acquired Agere's West Coast-based optoelectronics business in 2003.
Now Emcore has put two ex-Ortel executives in charge.
Dr Blauvelt has been at Emcore since December 2007, working as chief scientist with principal responsibility for the development of technologies for linear fibre-optic applications. His accomplishments at Emcore include developing linear externally modulated laser (LEML) technology, advanced dispersion compensation techniques for 1550nm distributed feedback (DFB) lasers, and linear low-noise optical receivers.
Prior to joining Emcore, Dr Blauvelt, whose career in lightwave communications spans more than 35 years, was chief technology officer for Xponent Photonics from October 2001 until 2007. He was employed by Ortel between 1985 and 2000, when the company was acquired by Lucent Technologies. After Ortel's acquisition, Dr. Blauvelt was named chief technologist for optical access products at Lucent Technologies/Agere Systems.
Dr. Blauvelt distinguished himself by important contributions in the design of optical transmitters and receivers for transmission of CATV signals over fibre-optic links and was the principal inventor on the Ortel patents related to reducing noise and distortion in the links.
Jeffrey Rittichier also has an impressive 16-year track record in the optical components industry, having held the positions of chief executive officer of Xponent Photonics, VP and general manager of Lucent's access business and vice president of marketing at Ortel. Mr. Rittichier joins Emcore from NanoStatics, a developer of nanofiber materials production systems, where he served as chief executive officer.
