Two join UK fibre optic components startup

UK fibre optic components startup, Kamelian, has strengthened its senior management team with the appointment of Bob Press as VP marketing and John McEachran as VP manufacturing.

UK fibre optic components startup, Kamelian, has strengthened its senior management team with the appointment of Bob Press as vice president marketing and John McEachran as vice president manufacturing.

Together, they bring extensive experience in fibre optics and semiconductor production to the company.

Kamelian's new III-V facility will be one of the most advanced in Europe and has been specifically designed for developing indium-phosphide-based semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) components for the global communications industry.

Press holds a BSc (Hons) degree in materials science from the University of Bath and has extensive experience in the fibre-optics industry.

He was previously marketing director at Scottish fibre components vendor, Kymata, and, prior to that, spent seven years at Nortel and eight years at STC Components.

He has also held positions at GEC and Racal.

"SOAs have many advantages over other optical amplifiers in fibre optic networking systems, and we predict that the market for them will grow rapidly, particularly as fibre technology permeates to the edge of the network", commented Paul May, CEO and cofounder of Kamelian.

"Bob brings enormous experience of the fibre optic components industry which will prove invaluable as we start to market these products to the global communications community".

McEachran has an MSc in manufacturing management and technology and has more than twenty years of senior management experience in high-volume semiconductor manufacturing.

He worked as operations manager for Filtronic Compound Semiconductor before joining Kamelian.

Prior to that he spent eight years in the wafer fabrication division at Fujitsu Microelectronics and has also held senior management positions at Amkor Anan (formally Indy Electronics) and National Semiconductor.

"As we gear up for volume production of our indium phosphide SOA-based devices, John will become an essential and invaluable member of the team", commented Tim Bestwick, COO and cofounder of Kamelian.

"He will be working in close co-operation with Craig Tombling, our vice president of engineering and development, to ensure that our new wafer fabrication and manufacturing facility can meet the stringent quality and volume requirement levels".

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