DJO Reshuffles Board Committees; Adds new Director
BY JOHN MCCORMICK, SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
dj Orthopedics, Inc. (NYSE:DJO), announced on Friday the appointment of W. Thomas Mitchell to its Board of Directors. Mr. Mitchell will serve as an independent director of the board and will serve on the audit committee, replacing Kirby Cramer, who will continue to serve as chairman of the compensation committee. Mr. Mitchell will also serve on the compensation committee, replacing Jack Blair, who will continue to serve as chairman of the Board of Directors and chairman of the nominating and corporate governance committee.
Mr. Mitchell is the former Chairman of the Board and CEO of Genencor International which he grew from under $30 million to over $325 million which included his managing the acquisition and integration of three major businesses to Genencor. Mr. Mitchell has participated in a number of important policy initiatives including the 1999 federal executive order that created the national bioenergy initiative. Mr. Mitchell also served as a member of the California Governor's Council on Biotechnology. He also served on the Advisory Boards of the Chemical Engineering School at Cornell University and the University of Iowa's School of Engineering. Mr. Mitchell is also a member of the board of directors for Neurocrine Biosciences.
According to management Mitchell was tapped for the broad business knowledge he has attained through building a global development and manufacturing business within the healthcare industry.
We note that this is the quarter that DJO is restructuring its Regentek operation. Management is seeking to integrate the Regentek sales reps into the DonJoy distribution channel and eventually double the number of Regentek reps. In the 2Q conference call, Management was clear that this may cause a short term temporary pressure on 3Q revenues for the DJO. The team nevertheless maintained its $260 million revenue guidance for 2004 due to a possible beneficial impact from the sales force integration seen as early as Q4 of this year.
