FARO Names Jim West as Chief Technology Officer

LAKE MARY, Fla., Jan. 14  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FARO Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:FARO), the world leader in portable computer-aided measurement hardware and software, announced it has named Jim West as its Chief Technology Officer.

"This completes the engineering succession plan I announced last year when Jim was promoted to Senior Vice President of Integrated Engineering," FARO President and CEO Jay Freeland said. "He has been integral in re-aligning our engineering personnel, systems and processes globally. Jim's technical knowledge and leadership ability have provided a solid foundation for our R&D team as we continue to grow our business."

In addition to West's existing responsibilities of leading the day-to-day activities of the worldwide engineering and R&D teams, he will now also be responsible for guiding the company's overall technology direction.

West's technical acumen comes in part from his extensive engineering background -- at age 17 he was a co-op student with the GM Technical Center's Manufacturing Staff, and also pioneered advanced manufacturing systems using machine vision and robotics. He was also chosen for his entrepreneurial spirit. West was a co-founder of Perceptron, a leader in laser-based vision gauging within the automotive industry.

He came to FARO through the acquisition of SMX in 2002 where he was Executive Vice President of Engineering and Co-COO. West was later promoted to Senior Vice President and General Manager for FARO's Laser Division. His new title will be Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer.

"Jim's increased responsibility as CTO signifies the importance of technology to our Company and the value of his leadership within the organization," Freeland concluded.

About FARO

With more than 14,600 installations and 7,000 customers globally, FARO Technologies, Inc. designs, develops, and markets portable, computerized measurement devices and software used to create digital models -- or to perform evaluations against an existing model -- for anything requiring highly detailed 3-D measurements, including part and assembly inspection, factory planning and asset documentation, as well as specialized applications ranging from surveying, recreating accident sites and crime scenes to digitally preserving historical sites.

FARO's technology increases productivity by dramatically reducing the amount of on-site measuring time, and the various industry-specific software packages enable users to process and present their results quickly and more effectively.

Principal products include the world's best-selling portable measurement arm -- the FaroArm; the world's best-selling laser tracker -- the FARO Laser Tracker; the FARO Laser ScanArm; FARO Laser Scanner LS; the FARO Gage, Gage-PLUS and PowerGAGE; and the CAM2 family of advanced CAD-based measurement and reporting software. FARO Technologies is ISO-9001 certified and ISO-17025 laboratory registered. Learn more at http://www.faro.com/ 

DATASOURCE: FARO Technologies, Inc.



CONTACT: Darin Sahler, Global PR Manager, of FARO Technologies, Inc.,

[phone], 



Web site:  http://www.faro.com/

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