OPEL appoints VP of technology as consultant on POET technology
OPEL Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada – which makes high-concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) panels and solar tracker systems through its subsidiary OPEL Solar Inc – has appointed Lee Shepherd as VP of technology. He joins OPEL as a consultant through his firm IT Millwrights Corp of Kanata, Ontario.
Shepherd brings expertise to assist the special committee of the board, which was established in August to drive monetization efforts of the POET platform technology of OPEL’s US affiliate OPEL Defense Integrated Systems (ODIS Inc) of Shelton, CT. In contrast, OPEL is in the process of divesting its solar operations.
The POET process enables monolithic fabrication of gallium arsenide (GaAs) integrated circuits containing both electronic and optical elements on a single wafer, with potential high-speed and power-efficient applications in devices such as servers, tablet computers and smartphones. III-V semiconductor devices developed by ODIS include infrared sensor arrays and ultra-low-power random access memory.
“OPEL has revitalized the company’s direction so that the core component of the strategy is to continue developing the POET platform,” says Peter Copetti, executive director of the board. “Shepherd joins our team to provide his guidance on POET’s roadmap and assisting in ultimately marketing the technology as expeditiously as possible,” he adds.
Shepherd has over 25 years of experience in business, technical, and military leadership roles. He spent the last 18 years in the telecoms/information technology industry, serving in technical, management, product architecture, engineering program management, technical sales, merger and acquisition leadership, and entrepreneurial roles of ever-increasing scope and responsibility.
Shepherd entered into a consulting agreement with OPEL whereby his company will provide consulting services for one year and be paid a consulting fee not exceed $10,000 per month. He was also granted a stock option to purchase 500,000 shares at an exercise price of $0.43 per share (OPEL’s close-of-trading price on the TSX Venture Exchangeon on 29 October), expiring on 26 October 2017. The options vest 25% immediately and 25% every six months thereafter.
