ARUBA GROWS MANAGEMENT TEAM AND OPERATIONS TO MEET EXPLOSIVE DEMAND FOR SECURE MOBILITY AND WIRELESS NETWORKING
Adds Three New Executive Staff, Moves Worldwide Headquarters to Larger Campus
SAN JOSE - September 21, 2004 - Aruba Wireless Networks™ (Aruba) today announced that it has added three industry veterans to its executive staff and is moving to a larger campus to accommodate staff growth planned over the next fiscal year.
The appointments are newly-created positions that will help Aruba address strong market demand for centralized secure mobility and wireless networking systems, a concept and new industry segment pioneered by the company in 2001.
Bringing over 60 years of combined high technology experience to Aruba, new staff members include Mr. Richard Wilmer, vice president of Operations, Ms. Pamela Adams, vice president of Engineering and Mr. Michael Kirby, vice president of Sales, Americas.
Additionally, Aruba is doubling the capacity of its corporate headquarters. The company will move to a new 50,000 square foot campus in Sunnyvale, California in October to accommodate the addition of personnel across all operations. Aruba currently employs approximately 150 staff in 50 locations around the world.
"Aruba has moved from startup status to an emerging company with explosive growth," said Don LeBeau, president and chief executive officer at Aruba Wireless Networks. "Our revenue ramp has exceeded the early comparable performances of such successful companies as Network Appliance, NetScreen, Alteon WebSystems, Foundry Networks and others."
"We're seeing incredible demand across all vertical segments," said LeBeau. "To capture this opportunity, we've put in place what is arguably the strongest management team of any company in our class."
NEW SENIOR MANAGERS BRING STRENGTH FROM EXPERIENCE
To support the ramping of manufacturing volumes, Mr. Richard Wilmer brings over 25 years of operations, manufacturing and management experience to Aruba. Mr. Wilmer brings to Aruba extensive expertise in developing large offshore manufacturing operations for high volume, low cost networking products.
Mr. Wilmer is responsible for the design and implementation of Aruba's manufacturing and supply chain strategy along with hardware quality, inventory management and fulfillment logistics. Joining Aruba from Procket Networks where he was vice president of Operations, Mr. Wilmer has also held senior management positions at well-established technology companies including 2Wire, Inc., Terastor, Seagate, Solectron, Maxtor and IBM.
With Aruba solutions now deployed in over 500 enterprises, Ms. Pamela Adams joins Aruba as vice president of Engineering with responsibility for all aspects of development on the Aruba product line. Ms. Adams brings more than 20 years of experience in computer network engineering with specific expertise in local and wide area network hardware and software development. Ms. Adams joins Aruba from Ciena where she was senior vice president of Engineering. Her experience also includes management positions at ONI, Trillium Digital Systems and Nortel Networks.
Finally, to support the strong growth in the North American market for Aruba's solution, Mr. Michael Kirby, a 10-year Cisco sales veteran, joins Aruba in the new position of vice president of Sales for the Americas. Mr. Kirby joins other regional vice presidents - Albert Benhamou, VP of Sales for EMEA and Takahide Sugimoto, VP of Sales for Japan - reporting to Mr. David Butler, VP of Worldwide Sales.
At Cisco, Mr. Kirby held a number of sales management position the most recent of which was vice president of worldwide software sales. Mr. Kirby is responsible for driving revenue within North America including the United States, Canada, Mexico and Latin America. Mr. Kirby has spent his entire sales career focused on computer networking holding various management positions at Cisco, Wang Labs, Ungermann-Bass, Proteon and ACC.
"Don has assembled a world-class team of industry veterans that understand what it takes to build a successful corporation in the networking industry," said Dominic Orr, Chairman of the Board of Aruba Wireless Networks. "With the innovative talents of the founding leadership team and the focused execution experience of the new managers, Aruba is poised to become a leading force in the emerging enterprise sector of secure mobility and wireless networking."
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